Harsh Childhood
by attonranden
Summary: Naruto hates the village and the village hates Naruto, when he leaves he takes a revenge driven Sasuke with him. What will become of the two hate filled shinobi and what secrets are they hiding after their years of solitude?
1. Chapter 1: Anbu

**Authors note**

**Hey guys this was the first fanfic that I had ever written, wow it started two years ago. Thought it was high time that I went over and edited it and maybe added a little something to the start. I hope you enjoy it. **

**The darkness of a shadow: Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the beginning. **

**Bostafu: He's just trying to help him. What would you do, Naruto is clearly in need of some love.**

**Okay for new readers this chapter is before the Uchiha massacre. **

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"DEMON! MONSTER! MURDERER! DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY!"

A five year old child was running down the back streets of Konoha, tears were streaming down his face. He was trying to escape the shouts behind him. He tried, desperately tried, to understand why they were chasing him. Why they were calling him a monster. He wasn't a monster, was he? He was just like all the other children at the orphanage, wasn't he? As the child rounded a corner one of the villagers who were chasing him slammed into him, easily knocking the much smaller child to the ground, where almost immediately the man standing over him lashed out with a kick. The child cried out in agony when the boot connected with his small ribs.

"I've found you! You monster!" the villager shouted, kicking the downed child again and again. His shouts were probably drawing the attention of any others who were hunting the child as well. "You're nothing but a filthy monster! A god damn demon in human form! Why should you be allowed to live after everything that you've done?" The moment that the man stopped for breath the child was on his feet. He ignored the pain that racked his small body as he ran away from the angry mob that was chasing after him. _'Why is this happening to me? Why are they hurting me? I haven't done anything to them!'_ The child thought he didn't understand why this was happening to him. The orphanage where he had lived all his life had thrown him out just a few days ago, even though he had nowhere else to go and no way to feed or cloth himself. They didn't even bother to spare him a second look when they threw him out of their doors.

In the few short days since then however, not one adult or shinobi had helped him. No one had even bothered to look at him with any kind of kindness or compassion, they all called him monster, or demon, or murderer. Now though, they had thrown subtly out of the window and were out for blood. They were after him to outright kill him, to end his life. Fresh tears followed the child's first ones as he ducked into a side street, hiding behind some trash at the far end. There was only one way out of the alley but that didn't matter, the child just needed somewhere to curl up and cry.

"I'm not a monster, my name is Naruto Uzumaki. I'm not a monster." Sobbing fitfully, Naruto looked down at his battered ribs to see if anything was broken but he couldn't find anything wrong with them, despite the pain. In truth he didn't have a scratch or bruise anywhere on him. "Why is… this… happening to me?" Wiping his nose on the back of his now filthy jumper, Naruto leaned back again the wall of the alley, it was cold and hard but those things barely registered in the distraught child's mind.

After a while Naruto just cried himself to sleep, letting the dark expanse of his dreams take him, though they held no salvation from his waking nightmare, as even in his dreams he was chased by the villagers. Their eyes brimming with hatred, always hatred, and something worse, it wasn't anything like the burning fury that was being exposed to now. It was coldness, a look that simply dismissed Naruto like he was a stain on the bottom of their shoes that they wanted to ignore. He didn't know why, but that look felt a hundred times worse than the burning hate in the Villages eyes.

As Naruto drifted into a fresh nightmare the nine tailed fox stirred from deep inside of the boy. He was forced to watch, forced to witness just how cruel and disgusting human beings could be. A new kind of fury built up in the fox as he watched the beatings, as he looked, through Naruto's eyes, the pure hatred that they directed at him. It wasn't a fury that the fox was familiar with, he was a mass of hatred because of the injustices heaped upon him simply for existing. This fury however wasn't as self-centred as that, this fury was because he was helpless to prevent this… this atrocity, from happening to his host. A simple, innocent, five year old baby boy!

"**Cowards all of you! I'm a living mass of hatred and evil and even I think what you're doing is sick!" **The nine tails roared bashing against the bars of his cage and trying to overpower the seal holding him back with his chakra, in the end all he accomplished was exhausting himself. **"He's a child! Not me, you fools!" **Growling in something akin to defeat the demon fox slumped to the ground and watched Naruto sleep, or at least watched as Naruto tried to sleep. His jinchūriki kept jerking and moaning as if he was being struck in his dreams as well.

He hated this! Damn Madara, damn Hashirama, damn his wife! Kyuubi hated them all. Why? Why were all humans the same?

Kyuubi wished that he wasn't bound by this blasted cage, aside from the obvious advantage of not being trapped, while he was like this he couldn't help Naruto defend himself and if he couldn't then who would? Naruto was five and the village was trying to kill him.

That very thought itself made Kyuubi pause. _**Defend him, why am I thinking about defending him? **_Kyuubi knew exactly why he was thinking it though. Despite everything he may have done to earn himself the title of Demon Fox he wasn't a monster. Naruto hadn't even been an hour old when the fourth Hokage sealed Kyuubi inside of the boy. Naruto was an innocent in all of this, and maybe, just maybe, Kyuubi felt something like kinship to the blonde because of that. His past hosts all knew what they were doing when they chose to be his _jail_, Naruto however.

**"And they call me the monster... I'm so sorry Naruto," **Kyuubi said mournfully, letting a sliver of his immense chakra fill the boy. It healed his wounds and took away the pain, it seemed to help Naruto slightly, as he stopped trashing about.

Kyuubi smiled at the child, even if he was the son of the fourth Hokage, the one responsibly of sealing him in here, he couldn't blame Naruto. He could never blame Naruto he realised. Growling, Kyuubi looked out of the bars of his cage and manipulated Naruto's mindscape enough to bring about an image of Konoha into his cell. Right then and there Kyuubi vowed to get revenge on the entire village and its dammed shinobi, but not for sealing him away for almost a hundred years. For torturing _his _jinchūriki!

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**(Two years later)**

"You're next!" the instructor yelled at Naruto, spitting in his direction as he glaring daggers at the boy. The last two years had been hell for Naruto, although the villagers had stopped beating him unconscious in the streets, even if it was under direct orders from the third Hokage. They barely even looked at him, and when they did they had a cold kind of hatred in their eyes. The third had let him move into an apartment block set away from the rest of the village in a rundown area. It was away from most of the villagers if nothing else. The Hokage even had an ANBU delivered enough food to keep Naruto healthy once a week as well but that was the only kindness that he received and even then, it was more of an obligation than an actual kindness.

Naruto was alone. Even the instructors barely put up with him and he had long given up trying to make friends with the other students. Some of them were friendly but they all said that their parents made them promise not to play with Naruto anymore, so he was alone. His only solace was the ninja academy, Naruto poured his heart and soul into studying and practicing whatever was given, he was one of the best in the class although none of the instructors would ever admit it. The instructors would barely even look at him and they only ever spoke to him to offer insult or abuse, so Naruto was left with little to no help at all.

It had been a long two years for Kyuubi as well. The nine tailed fox had used every opportunity and opening that was available to him to force his chakra through the seal. There were plenty of times in the past two years when Naruto had been angry or seriously emotional. Times were the blond unconsciously tapped into his chakra, and Kyuubi had added his own to the mix every time, as much as he could anyway. In doing this Kyuubi was slowly strengthening the bond between himself and his jinchūriki. The fourth Hokage's seal was designed to allow Kyuubi's chakra to leak through into Naruto, and slowly, but constantly mix the two's chakra. This wasn't good enough; it would take years still for the bond to be strong enough for Kyuubi to actively communicate with Naruto, and by that point the child might have had his mind conditioned to ignore everything that Kyuubi said.

With his method, the bond was already reaching the point where Kyuubi could almost talk to Naruto. The blond could sometimes hear small fragments when he tapped into his chakra but it wasn't enough.

Naruto glared back at the instructor as he walked up, he had his shuriken in hand before he reached the line. The blond had done this over a hundred times by himself and in class, he didn't understand why he had to do it yet again. Getting into a ready stance Naruto carefully aimed for the post before throwing his shuriken at the target, noting with a pleased smile as they hit in an almost straight line, apart from one that completely missed.

There was no round of applause or even a good comment from his instructor though as Naruto wandered back into the line. Even though some looked like they wanted to say something the glare that Naruto gave them stopped any such comment. It was a lot easier, he found, to be angry at everyone and everything around him. It made all the little things that happened to him and even some of the bigger ones hurt less than they should.

"Okay, Sasuke you're next," the instructor said, after pulling Naruto's shuriken out of the post. Naruto smiled as he noticed that the instructor had difficulty with one. Looking towards the Uchiha, Naruto couldn't help but notice the cool calm that seemed to just pour from him; Sasuke took his place, aiming carefully for a second before throwing his shuriken, the class clapped in applause as the shuriken hit the post, the line wasn't as straight as Naruto's had been but Sasuke had managed to hit the post with them all earning himself a well done from the instructor. As the rest of the class practiced with their shuriken it was clear that Naruto and Sasuke were the best at it but ultimately only Sasuke received any recognition for his skills. It should have hurt, but Naruto had come to accept that as well, no matter how hard he tried or how good he was no one would ever accept him.

Naruto quickly ran off once the class had finished, not exactly eager to stick around and see if something happened to him 'by accident'. It had become a habit of his, he would attend the academy and then go home to wait the day out, sometimes he headed into the forest to practice with his shuriken or his taijustu, but other days he would just sit in his apartment, on his bed looking out the window and wondering what it was like for those people down below him. People who didn't have to worry about others trying to break into his apartment every night or worry if someone had decided that they'd had enough of their 'demon' and stab him in the chest.

Naruto grimaced though as he remembered what lay for him at home, for two years the ANBU black ops had sent members, who had obviously been assigned to guard him, to watch him, they would watch him eat, study, they would follow him into the forest and even watch him sleep. They never spoke not even when Naruto tried to speak to them and it freaked him out, and made him angry when they never talked back or offered help or advice when he was struggling. Why be there and just watch?

As Naruto rushed home he was greeted with a familiar masked ANBU, wearing the standard ANBU black ops outfit with what Naruto thought was a dog mask; it was hard to tell sometimes. He was holding two full bags of shopping prompting Naruto to remember what day of the week it was, every Monday he would get his week's worth of supplies. The ANBU also had his standard ANBU katana strapped to his back, which Naruto thought strange, none of the ANBU sent before had worn one, and Naruto recognised this one realising that he had watched him before, _'Maybe he has a mission?'_ Naruto thought, silently unlocking his door. As usual the ANBU waited patiently for Naruto to enter his apartment before slipping past him, placing the two bags in the kitchen area.

"Don't suppose you want anything?" Naruto asked sourly, proceeding to tidy his apartment and put the shopping into cupboards, he had nothing better to do. The academy hadn't given any work to do today and dinner wasn't for hours yet. As usual the ANBU just shook his head, this guy was one of the more responsive ones, he didn't just ignore Naruto straight out. After a few minutes Naruto was finished, there really was nothing for him to do, so he just sat on his bed staring out the window. His apartment didn't really have any rooms, aside from the bathroom everything else was in the main room, his bed, a table and the sink area.

The hours stretched by as Naruto sat there, forgetting all about his hungry stomach. He thought that he caught the ANBU looking where Naruto kept his food, and then back to him, as if he were worried that he hadn't eaten or something but he never voiced his concern if he really had any. He didn't move from that one spot all night, even as Naruto started to drift off to sleep, not caring that he was still in his school clothes.

"Bastard," Naruto muttered before drifting off into blissful sleep.

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The next day Naruto was surprised to find the same ANBU still guarding him, although he had moved from his designated spot. Interested Naruto didn't move, barely opening his eyes as he watched the ANBU… Making breakfast? Realising that he hadn't eaten the night before Naruto willed down the grumble that was coming from his stomach, none of the ANBU had ever even moved from their self assigned spot and here one was making breakfast. As the ANBU was putting bread in the toaster, Naruto realised that his katana was hanging on the back of one of the table chairs. As he stared at it Naruto didn't notice that the ANBU was finished until he picked his katana up again, a plate of eggs, bacon and toast in front Naruto's usual seat.

"You should eat something," the ANBU said plainly, sitting in the seat opposite to where he had just placed the toast so he could still keep an eye on him. Naruto stared at the ANBU defiantly, his face hidden by the mask made it impossible to read his expression; he didn't need to be babied. Naruto couldn't suppress the grumble that his stomach made for a second time and eventually his hunger won over his defiance forcing him to the table. The ANBU simply stared at him as he looked at the food cautiously.

"It's not poisoned," the ANBU said as Naruto looked at him and then the toast. Taking a small bite, he decided that it really didn't matter if it was or not, he was too hungry to care. Besides if the ANBU wanted to kill him he could have done it while he was sleeping. "It's customary to thank people when they do something for you, but you just seem to separate yourself even more from them." The ANBU said as Naruto quickly devoured the remaining food and glared at the ANBU when he was finished.

"What do I have to thank you for? What do I have to thank anyone for?"

"For protecting you," the ANBU almost gasped as the plate Naruto had just used came spinning towards his head, smashing on the wall behind him.

"PROTECTING ME! THE VILLAGE TRIED TO KILL ME THE MOEMENT I WAS OUT OF THE ORPHANAGE! This village and its shinobi hunted and beat me for months and no one said a word, no one ever offered their aid, even to a crying, bleeding 5 year old child! Why should I thank you or anyone else? The village hates me!" Naruto was shaking with rage; he was almost at the point of trying to attack the ANBU in front of him, flashes of killing the ANBU with his own sword made Naruto smile inside. Neither Naruto or the ANBU knew it but Kyuubi was using this as a chance to flood Naruto's small, still developing chakra system with as much chakra as he was able.

"The third Hokage protected you and gave you a home." The ANBU wasn't prepared when Naruto lunged at him across the table, far faster than he thought that Naruto would be able to move and knocked him off his chair and onto the floor.

"The Lord Hokage," Naruto spat the name out, pinning the ANBU to the floor, "Imprisoned me in an apartment under the guard of you ANBU bastards. I hate... I hate you all!" Naruto screamed, throwing a punch at the ANBU mask.

Naruto paused as the punch actually connected, knocking the mask straight off the ANBU, revealing a masked ninja with white hair and a scar going through his left eye, which was closed. Realising that the ANBU had no intention of stopping him, Naruto punched him again... and again...and again, he didn't stop until he was panting for air and his arm started shaking. Naruto smiled as he noticed that the ANBU was bleeding.

"Did that make you feel better at all, Naruto?" The white haired ANBU said, his eye showing nothing of how he felt. Growling Naruto punched the ANBU again before getting up muttering something about getting ready, but paused as the ANBU's words sunk in.

"What did you call me?" Naruto asked looking back at the man getting up from the floor. The ANBU looked at him; he was really looking at him, not through him. It made Naruto feel strange, whenever the villagers looked at him there was so much hate in their eyes, but this guy, there was nothing, he was too calm.

"I called you Naruto," the ANBU repeated, picking the fallen chair back up and sitting back down in it, not bothering to clean up the blood on his face, '_No one has ever used my name before'_ Naruto thought, he didn't like it! Why was this ANBU suddenly talking to him, making him breakfast and letting him punch him?

"STOP IT!" Naruto screamed he wasn't sure why he was so angry or upset. Everyone in this village treated him like a monster, he wasn't used to anyone showing him a kindness, but this ANBU was...he was...

"**Naruto," **A dark voice resonated deep within him, it wasn't the first time that Naruto had heard it before, in the past two years it had become like Naruto's sixth sense. Helping him when he needed it. Naruto usually did what it said, he had gotten more than enough wounds from not listening to argue with it, but he just couldn't ignore the ANBU sat before him.

"Stop what Naruto? All I'm doing is saying your name." The ANBU said, he was far to calm, it was making Naruto shake with anger again.

"Stop it, just shut up! Shop talking, stop saying my name. You're not supposed to talk to me; you're not supposed to be kind!" Naruto screamed again.

"**Naruto, he's trying to mess with you. Don't listen to him!" **Deciding to listen this time, Naruto ran out of his apartment leaving the ANBU far behind as he headed for the academy. He simply couldn't understand the emotions running through him.


	2. Chapter 2: Sasuke

**Authors note: **hiya I'm glad that a few people put the first chapter on their alerts and obviously enjoyed it but please leave a review, good or bad, please!

When Naruto reached the academy he was still confused, he couldn't stop thinking about that ANBU back at his apartment, he didn't understand why he was being like that, why was he being nice all of a sudden? _'There must be a reason. He wants something that's it.' _The more Naruto tried to justify it, the angrier he became, but then he would just confuse himself, thinking that the ANBU couldn't have an ulterior motive, he had nothing to gain. As he walked into the academy he shook his head, he couldn't comprehend why the ANBU had done that. Why had he been nice, everyone in this village hated him!

Naruto didn't pay any attention as his lesson started; for once his instructors looked happy at him as he constantly answered questions wrong and flinched when he was shouted at. Eventually, he just stopped trying to answer, saying that he didn't know if he was asked something. Naruto just shut down as the lesson continued, he stopped talking, stopped listening, stopped looking at the other students, when the bell for break went off, Naruto just sat there staring at the table as the other students ran out of the classroom their instructor smiling as he looked at Naruto, it felt like 2 years worth of the villages hate was crashing down on Naruto all at once as he remembered all the suffering that he had been through. All the wounds, all the broken bones, all the blood that he had shed, came rushing back to him.

'_Why does this village hate me? WHY!' _Naruto screamed inside his head, he didn't realise it but he was crying, his tears making a small puddle on the desk, _'I've never done anything to deserve this, nothing! Why do they hate me? Why do they hurt me? Why will no one accept me!'_

The Kyuubi watched all of this from his cell, bashing against the bars holding him prisoner, he had given up trying to talk to Naruto, he could shout for days at a time with only a word or two getting through, the seal keeping him inside Naruto was still too new, too strong for him to do anything more than give the young boy some of his chakra when he really needed it, Naruto only seemed to hear him when he was scared or confused, but if he was like this then Naruto would never hear him_._

"**Damned village he's a child!" **The fox screamed inside his cage, true fury building inside of him, as he watched Naruto cry at his desk, **"If I ever get free, I'll kill them all." **The Kyuubi growled.

As Naruto sat there crying at his desk, he remembered all the faces of everyone who had every hurt him, hundreds of faces and dozens of shinobi sprung to mind as he sat there, the shinobi had always hurt the worst, their headbands a constant reminder that the village hayed him, the hidden leaf hated his very existence. As the time passed, the students filed back into the class room, no one noticed that Naruto was crying, why would they, he was sat alone at the back of the class room, away from everyone else. He felt like screaming but couldn't get his mouth to work, nothing would move. Naruto didn't notice as the class began filing out again or as a lone student came up to his desk.

"Naruto ? Naruto, are you alright?" A voice asked in his ear, _'Who's that?' _Naruto thought, it was strange for someone to use his name, it couldn't be an instructor but all of the students stayed away from him.

"Sensei I think there's something wrong with Naruto." The student cried, _'It's a student?' _Naruto thought, slowly turning his head to look who it was next to him.

"Leave him, it's not worth the effort." Naruto flinched as the words left the instructors mouth, looking back towards the desk, whoever it was it didn't matter.

"I'll be out in a minute, Sensei." The student said, Naruto noticed that he had sat down next to him. "Naruto, come on wake up, it's time for shuriken practice." The student said, as the instructor left the room, looking to his side Naruto was surprised to see Sasuke sat next to him, concern in his eyes. The young Uchiha shook Naruto gently, smiling as he realised that Naruto was looking at him.

"Come on, you can't let me get ahead of you." Sasuke said cheerfully, grabbing Naruto's arm and pulling at it gently.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked softly, making the young Uchiha frown, as he tugged a little harder.

"I'm trying to get you to move so we can practice our shuriken jutsu. Have you been crying?" Sasuke asked, looking at the small pool of Naruto's tears on the desk, which Naruto only just noticed. Wiping his eyes Naruto looked at his hand like he had never seen tears before. It had been a long time since Naruto cried, even with all the hate and suffering that was inflicted upon him, he stopped crying after a few months out of the orphanage, he didn't think that he had any tears left in him. As he looked back at Sasuke Naruto saw the Uchiha frowning at him. "Why were you crying? Was it because of sensei shouting at you, you haven't been doing very well today?"

'_Does he actually care?'_ Naruto thought, looking straight into Sasuke's eyes, he had never seen concern on another human beings face before, he didn't know what to look for. As he looked at Sasuke, Naruto felt more tears well up in his eyes, he didn't know... He couldn't understand whether or not Sasuke was worried or not.

"You shouldn't be talking to me." The jinchūriki eventually said, looking back at the table, "Others always get mad when people talk to me."

"Why would someone get mad for me talking to you." Sasuke moved a bit closer as he asked, the Uchiha still had a firm grip on Naruto's arm.

"I don't know." Naruto sobbed, completely breaking down into tears, "I don't know why anyone does anything. I don't know why everyone hates me, I don't know why they beat me, I don't know anything." Sasuke let go of Naruto's arm out of shock as he started crying, before saying the simplest thing.

"I don't hate you." Naruto's sobbing seemed to just disappear as he looked at Sasuke, the young Uchiha smiling back at him, "I've never hated you Naruto, in fact I kinda like you." Sasuke laughed, the sound seemed so strange to him, laughing meant that someone was happy, why was Sasuke happy? Naruto had never laughed before: he had never felt happy before.

"You...Like me?"

"Yeah, you're the only one who can beat me with shuriken and your smart, although no one seems to notice. I hate it when they say I've done well and never mention you. After all your better than me." Sasuke admitted, sitting down next to Naruto again, he looked out the class room window to the training area, where the rest of their class was lining up to practice with shuriken.

"But you're better than me with shuriken." Naruto muttered, looking out the window as well, he felt a sudden contempt for their sensei, as he stood there congratulating everyone that tried. _'I'm better than all of them.'_ Naruto thought bitterly, watching as the same students failed to hit the post again and again.

"You're the best Naruto, sensei just never mentions it, and that makes me mad." Sasuke said, glaring at their sensei through the window before looking back at Naruto and asking. "Is that why you still by yourself?"

Shaking his head Naruto almost burst into tears again.

"The others say that their sensei's and parents get mad at them if they talk to me, I don't know why I haven't done anything wrong!" Naruto almost screamed, he didn't want to talk about this anymore, it was hurting him, his heart hurt the more he talked about it.

"Well, I don't think my mom or dad will mind if I talk to you, and I know that my brother would say that I should." Sasuke beamed, smiling at Naruto. "Actually he would say that I should be as nice to you as possible." Sasuke frowned getting up and running over to his own desk, smiling as he grabbing his bag and ran back over to where Naruto was sitting.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked, he truly didn't understand what was happening. Sasuke just kept smiling at him as if it were obvious.

"I'm going to make sure that you're not by yourself anymore, and if you'll let me, I want to be your friend." Naruto was in shock, why would the best student in the class even care about a nobody like him, why would he risk their sensei's anger? Naruto didn't understand why this was happening but the thought of having a friend, even for a short time, pulled at him. To be able to call someone his friend.

"**He will have to leave as well, just like all the others."** The Kyuubi warned, his remorse clear to Naruto even in the child's present state.

"I've never had a friend before." Naruto muttered to himself, thinking that Sasuke couldn't hear him. "I don't think that I would be a very good friend."

"If you have never had one then how would you know?" Sasuke asked with a warm smile. The truth was that Sasuke felt sorry for him, he had never realised how alone Naruto really was, Sasuke didn't try to make friends at the academy or at the Uchiha clans compound but he was happy with that. Naruto didn't have anyone, he was parentless, friendless and it was clear to Sasuke that their sensei hated Naruto for some reason, Naruto was truly alone.

"So will you be my friend?" Sasuke asked holding out a fist obviously expecting something from Naruto, but the jinchūriki just sat there looking between Sasuke's eyes and his fist. The Uchiha seemed nice; he had been the only person to ever see if he was alright, he was the only one...NO! Naruto panicked wrapping his arms around his chest, why did it hurt so much?

"No! You can't, you have to go away." Naruto pleaded, he just wanted the pain to stop.

"Why not?" Sasuke asked, his smile was still as warm as before.

"They'll tell you go away, they tell everyone to say away from me." Why won't the pain go away?

"Then I'll not listen and stay." Sasuke answered, as if it were a simple choice, he giggled as he sat there his smile not faltering one bit at Naruto's comments like he was explaining something obvious.

"But...But then they'll get mad at you...and..and they'll hurt me to keep me away." Naruto shuddered he was on the verge of tears again as he remembered the time that a bodyguard had beaten him up for coming near a small girl he just saved from some bullies. He was never told why, even if the guard had been 'gentle' in telling Naruto to stay away from the girl. "Please, just, I don't want to... To..."

"**Naruto." **The Kyuubi couldn't just sit and watch as Naruto was torn in two by his warring emotions, he didn't have the power to be there for Naruto, to fix the damage that this village has done to him the seal suppressing the nine tailed fox made sure of that but maybe this Uchiha could. The irony wasn't lost on the Kyuubi that his host's first friend could be an Uchiha. **"Naruto, how many times have you tried to form a bond with someone in this village?"**

"I...I..."

"**Too many times." **The Kyuubi interrupted realising that the boy was talking out loud, he wouldn't let Naruto ruin his first chance at a friendship because the boy looked crazy in Sasuke's eyes. **"Sasuke is the first person who has ever tried to be friends with you, he's the only person who hasn't ever beaten or ignored you. He's willing to try to be your friend. Let him try, don't you want to try and be happy?" **

"I don't know what it means to be happy." The Kyuubi froze as he heard the words, he was grateful when Sasuke unknowingly stepped in to save his argument, the demon fox couldn't trust his next words but he doubted that they would be helpful. He again vowed to slaughter the leaf village if he ever got free of this prison, and to use the third Hokage's body as a chew toy for what he had done to Naruto.

"I'll show you what it means Naruto." The young Uchiha beamed, Naruto couldn't help but trust that smile and there was no malice or contempt in it, just an innocent joy. Nodding his agreement, Sasuke just seemed to smile wider holding his fist out again. Naruto eventually bumped fists with the Uchiha, after being told what to do by the Kyuubi, who was smiling behind the bars in his cage.

Before the pair could do anything else, their class stormed back in the room, followed by their sensei, who didn't make any move to hide his feelings at finding Naruto and Sasuke sitting next to each other.

"Sasuke, move back to your seat." The sensei commanded, making everyone in the class turn to the genius child, who was promptly shaking his head. "I said move!"

"No sensei, I'm sitting next to Naruto." Naruto was amazed; he had expected Sasuke to go running back to his first seat even after what he had said. Naruto wasn't prepared when their sensei turned his now murderous look at the boy.

"You, get out of my class room!" he yelled pointing directly at Naruto, the entire class looked stunned, their sensei had never gotten this made before, they all case Naruto a worried glance. "I said get out! I won't have a monster anywhere near my innocent students!" Naruto grabbed his bag, running out of the class room. After almost being physically kicked out by his sensei, Naruto stared at his classrooms door, before running away from the academy.

The Kyuubi was in shock his one hope for helping Naruto was gone, Sasuke probably wouldn't even look at Naruto anymore, if out of fear for himself being punished or Naruto, it didn't matter. By the time the seal weakened enough for the fox to talk to Naruto freely it would be too late, Naruto would be beyond anything his words could repair. Sighing, the Kyuubi curled up in defeat, trying to block out everything he could feel from Naruto.

When Naruto rushed back into his apartment he didn't stop to notice that his regular ANBU guard wasn't there, his chest hurt so much that he couldn't even make it all the way to his bed before he collapsed. Curling into a ball Naruto cried softly only looking up as a shadow passed over him.

Sasuke rushed out to meet his big brother as the academy finished for the day, there was an important meeting for their sensei's so they all got to finish a bit early, but Sasuke didn't rush towards his brother because he was happy, he ran because he was worried about Naruto, and wanted to go see him. He had asked a few of the other students about Naruto and they all said that their parents told them to stay away from him and the apartment that he lived in because he was a monster. _'Monster? Sensei called him the same thing, but he can't be a monster, he looked too sad. Monsters are supposed to hurt people, and Naruto was more worried about what might happen to me.´_ Sasuke thought, he couldn't understand what everyone hated about Naruto so much, he never did anything wrong in class, and he was even the best. How was he a monster?

"Sasuke." The young Uchiha noticed that he had just ran past Itachi, his older brother looked a lot like him except for his long hair and serious look. Grabbing his brothers hand Sasuke quickly set off in the direction of Naruto's apartment, pulling his confused older brother behind him. "Sasuke, home is in the other direction." Itachi commented after they had walked a little while, Sasuke still dragging his brother along.

"I know that but I want to go somewhere first."

"So where are we going?" Itachi asked, noticing that his younger sibling never said where or who they were seeing. The sight of his little brother hesitating before answering didn't go unnoticed either, planting his feet Itachi stopped Sasuke in his tracks giving him a serious look. "Sasuke where are we going?"

"One of my friends wasn't feeling very well and rushed home; I just want to see if he is ok." Sasuke said, trying to pull his brother along again. Itachi could tell that he was lying, but Sasuke did look worried, shrugging he let himself be dragged along.

It wasn't long before Sasuke reached the apartment where Naruto lived, Itachi wondered idly why the apartment seemed familiar, he had never been here himself but he thought that it might have been mentioned in a report that he had read.

"Why is the door open?"Sasuke wondered out loud, as he stepped in the doorway, his first thought was to shout for Naruto before his brother's hand stopped him, Itachi had a finger over his lips, taking the hint Sasuke didn't make a sound as his brother moved in front of him walking forwards softly. Sasuke could just make out a quiet sob, _'Did Itachi hear that all the way from the door?'_ Sasuke wondered before he rounded the corner.

The first thing he noticed was blood, lots of blood, a pool of it lay in the centre of the room with a wicked blood drenched blade set down next to it, following the large smear leading away from the pool Sasuke found the source of the crying.


	3. Chapter 3: Kyuubi

**Note:** Sorry that this took so long to come out, I've been having a few problems trying to figure out where this is going but I have it planned out now so the next chapter should be done in a week, oh and if you think that this chapter feels a little rushed with too many details and events crammed into only a little bit of writing, let me know so that I can split it up and enlarge it. 7

**Legend:** **"Kyuubi talk, only Naruto or someone in Naruto's mind can hear it.**

_**'Kyuubi thoughts, only Kyuubi can hear.**_

___"Naruto talking to Kyuubi inside his head"_

_ General thoughts that no one can hear_

"Ordinary conversation"

Itachi did nothing to hide the obvious rage as he read the report on his desk, it had been a week since he and his little brother found Naruto beaten, stabbed and bleeding on his own floor huddled in a corner. If Itachi had know that Sasuke's friend had been the jinchuriki for the Kyuubi, the demon fox that attacked the village years ago, he would have dragged his little brother home, kicking and screaming if he had to, and that thought sickened him, in fact the way that Naruto was treated by every adult in the village was disgusting in his eyes, Itachi hadn't seen a monster in that apartment, he had seen a frightened broken and beating child huddling in the darkest part of the room, begging for the pain to stop. Naruto Uzumaki was neither a monster or a demon, that much had been made clear in Itachi's eyes.

The moment that Naruto's regular ANBU guard arrived Itachi ordered him straight to the hokage's office and to bring an Inuzuka back right away, Itachi was caught up in an exceedingly rare moment of rage and was prepared to strip the ANBU of his status for the slightest hesitation. Sasuke spent the entire time trying to wake Naruto up, the boy was unconscious but breathing. Itachi could barley watch, how could anyone harm the child in such a way even if they did believe that he was a monster. The ANBU arrived shortly after departing bringing along a confused kunoichi who Itachi reconsigned as Tsume Inuzuka and her partner Kuromaru, a wolfish looking canine with a eye patch over his right eye and his left ear missing, as the pair took in the scene before them the ANBU quickly explained that he came across them on his way to the hokage tower and thought to bring them back to assist Itachi, the Uchiha heir thanked him and reordered him to hokage tower to inform the hokage of this predicament.

He remembered the look on Tsume's face perfectly, it was impossible for her to miss the possession marks on Naruto's face that would forever mark him as the Kyuubi's host but as she looked over the small pool of blood and the knife that lay by Naruto's side she seemed to be torn. On one side this was the host of the Kyuubi and no amount of logical reasoning could simply remove all the hate that that fact brought with it but on the other side this was an attack on a innocent defenceless child. Kuromaru made his choice the moment he had time to process the scene and come to the conclusion that Naruto was attacked, he had been there when the village was attacked and understood the hate towards the Kyuubi but he couldn't understand why the hate was being directed at this child, if anything they should be hailing him as a hero, he was the one keeping the Kyuubi away from the village weather he knew it or not, so as he looked at the child motionless in Sasuke's arms he growled going over to the knife and hoping that Naruto's blood hadn't covered up the scent of the attacker. When her partner made his choice it seemed to spur Tsume to action, she immediately began searching for a foreign scent in the apartment, her nose was almost as good as Kuromaru's, as Itachi gently picked Naruto up and started heading for the hospital.

Itachi had to wait an entire week for a report that should only have taken less than a day to write and bring to him. It seemed that Naruto's attacker was a shinobi no ordinary civilian could have left no trace like that one who attacked Naruto did, neither Tsume nor Kuromaru could find any scents that didn't belong to either herself her partner, Naruto, Sasuke, Itachi and the ANBU who had received the full force of Itachi's and the hokage's wrath and had been subsequently demoted back to genin, perhaps permanently. Itachi had considered the idea that the ANBU could have stabbed Naruto but whoever made the report seemed to have the same thought and had Tsume confirm that the ANBU's scent was only at the threshold of the apartment and not actually in it.

Itachi had asked his close friend Shisui Uchiha to investigate the scene after he had reported to the hokage, the ANBU captain knew that Shisui would investigate to his fullest capability no matter who the victim was, and he did just that, according to the report he interviewed Naruto after he came out of shock and had him confirm a few things. The male shinobi, as Naruto remembered him wearing a headband, had broken into his apartment and had apparently waited until the boy arrived home from the academy, Shisui attached a list of codenamed ANBU showing the schedule for that day, there was a gap in the middle of the day where Naruto attended the academy and it was deemed unnecessary to guard the place as the boy wasn't home, there was also a report from Naruto's teacher saying that he sent the boy home early for being disrespectful, a danger to others while training with shuriken, disrupting the class and failing to complete the work assigned him, Itachi lingered on the personal note that Shisui had sealed at the bottom for his eyes only, it read: _That was from the kids teacher, but I asked a few of the other kids and your brother, apparently what made the bastard send Naruto home early was him sitting next to your brother, when Sasuke refused to move away from him the guy exploded at Naruto and almost threw the kid out of his classroom, from what I can make out he went straight home after that and was attacked. Sorry Itachi there's nothing, no scent that can be traced, the weapon appears to have been custom made by the attacker but even that is a dead end, its a simple enough design and almost any adult ninja with a grudge against Naruto could have made it and the kid was so scared that he says he cant remember the attackers face, most likely he wore a mask. There's nothing Itachi almost half the village could have done this and I cant think of any way to narrow it down hundreds of ninja were on leave that day and still hundreds have the skill to pull it off. I'm going to close the report saying that Naruto wasn't attacked and that it was an accident, I know it will piss you off to no end but I'll keep a copy on my cold case stack in case something like this happens again, I want to make an announcement and hope that someone will either come forward or slip up but we both know that the hokage wont allow that, I'm sorry. _

Itachi resisted the overwhelming urger to throw the report away, he had to stay calm getting so worked up about this wasnt going to make things any better, he had to accept that there was nothing that could be done know except to make sure that it didnt happen again, Itachi had already reoganised the ANBU timetable so that Naruto's apartment was watched at all times. It became clear to Itachi just how much the village hated Naruto once he arrived at the hospital, it took a direct order from the hokage for a doctor to come and see to Naruto and that was after Itachi had tried desperatly for the half an hour it took the thrid to arrive.

Thanks to the remarkable regenerative powers of the nine tailed fox Naruto was deemed 'fit' and able to return to his studies within five minutes, a length of time both Itachi and the hokage knew wasnt long enough for a proper physical examination but it seemed not even the hokage could bully a full physical out of the doctor so they simply decided that it would be better to take him home, Sasuke had begged for Itachi to take Naruto back with them so that he woulnd't be alone but he couldn't, their father would never allow it and Itachi couldnt strain his postion with his father any more than it already was. They came to a compromise, Sasuke was able to spend a few hours with Naruto before they had to go home, although unresponsive at first Naruto soon started talking to Sasuke and by the time they had to go home Naruto seemed like a normal child again, smiling happily at Sasuke, but there was a hidden fire behind his eyes when he looked at Itachi. Itachi was really suprised that his brother had become so friendly to someone outside of the clan, it seemed to make him all the more persistent when they were walking home though, he argued that Itachi would never leave him alone if soemthing like that happened and Itachi had to consintly remind him that there was an ANBU guard posted inside Naruto's apartment.

But as Itachi began reading through the hundreds of reports from the ANBU memebers that have guarded Naurto in the past, they all had one thing in common tey never talked with the subject or interacted with him on any level, infact they downright ignored him. All except one Kakashi Hatake who commented in his report that inthis opinion Naruto's mental stablity was reaching a dangerous level for a Kyuubi host. Kakashi reported that Naruto snapped and attacked him him when he showed the boy some kindness. Itachi hoped that with Sasuke trying to be Naruto's friend then that might change but he made a mental note to try and give Kakashi guard duty more often, he idly wondered if Kakashi would ever consider adopting Naruto but he couldnt ask that of the man.

Sighing itachi looked back to Naruto's personal file, his eyes lingering on the hospital reports that were filed under his name, three reports stood out, reports that seemed proud to admit obvious beatings, massive blunt force trauma, internal bleeding, broken bones, stab wounds and even one case of rape, each case was on the boys birthday where the villages grew bold enough to openly challenge the third hokage's law and beat Naruto in the streets while celerbrating the 'death' of the nine tailed fox.

It didn't come as a great suprise when Itachi looked at Naruto's academy reports and found that he was the dead last in the academy, not even when Sasuke had promised to Itachi that Naruto was just as good as he was if not better, no teacher in that academy wanted to even smile at the boy let alone praise him for anything.

Itachi sighed, resting his head in his hands, he wished that he could do something for Naruto, but he couldnt offer the boy any kind of shelter, his father would have Naruto thrown out of the compound the moment he found out Naruto was there, what bugged Itachi was the fact that his father probably wouldnt care that Naruto was the nine tails host he would just see a non Uchiha, and Itachi was too busy with his own duties to try and support Naruto in any way, the most he could do was shift the duty rosters and ensure that Naruto had a guard around the clock.

"I hope Sasuke does a better job at helping you Naruto because I'm basically sat on my hands." Itachi mumered, putting the reports aside as he looked at a file on his father. He couldn't quite supress the sadness at what he was about to do as he picked up his sword. "Forgive me brother."

In the few weeks since the attack Naruto hadn't retuerned to the academy even though he was cleared to do so, he'd barely even eaten anything and hadn't spoken a word to anyone, not even when Kakashi was his guard and the ANBU had sat next to him all day, he'd tried to talk to the blonde but his attempts were only met with silence, he'd even offered to teach something to Naruto, something cool but he just sat there staring off into space.

Not for the first time Naruto considered giving up on becoming a ninja and to just hide away from the world, away from the village...the village, why was it always about the village? The village hated Naruto, the village thought he was a monster, a bomb just waiting to go off and kill everyone, a demon... they didn't know how right hey were. Ever since the attack something within Naruto's seal broke or was slightly misplaced, he didnt know and he didn't care, the only thing that mattered was that the only one who cared about him could finally talk to him without a troublesome seal blocking his every word. The kyuubi was finally unleashed within Naruto's mind, and they were both pissed, the small sliver of hatred that Naruto had felt towards the village had turned into a smouldering lake, the Kyuubi had begun to slowly turn Naruto into a living weapon against the village. They both knew that he was doing it but Naruto didn't care about the village, after the attack the first one to help him was a demon, the only one who ever helped him was a demon.

(few weeks ago)

Naruto lay wimpering in a pool of his own blood a knife buried to the hilt in his stomach while his entire frame shook with pain, the knife sending waves of agony through him.

** "Oh kit. I'm so sorry." **The kyuubi whispered, he had forced himself to watch his hosts brutal beating, he always forced himself to watch at least a benifit was that he knew exactly where to direct his chakra to help relive the pain, it would take a little while but he would be as good as new, but with the beating came his usual doubts, was it worth it, isn't it crueler patching him up just so that they can tear the poor boy down again? Wasn't he being the cruelest of them all to make the boy endure this again, he could end it, without his help Naruto would bleed out in a few minutes.

"Why are you sorry?" Naruto chocked out suddenly.

**"You can hear me?" **Suprised, the Kyuubi wondered if this latest beating might actually surve a purpose, if he could finally talk freely to Naruto then things would change dramatically for the both of them.

"I can always hear you." Naruto said, he was confused but it was helping to distract him from the pain coming from his stomach.

**"Not as much as you think, but it doesnt matter anymore, I'm hear for you ok, you can trust me." **The words felt so strange as the fox said them, usually a beast of malice and hate, it felt strangly good to actually mean those words instead of just lying to try and trick Naruto, he truly cared for the boy.

"I d...do trus...t you." Naruto sit had no idea who he was really talking to but this voice had helped him for as long as he could remember, it had been the one to offer advice when he truly needed it, why shoudlnt Naruto trust it.

**"Good." **The Kyuubi purred, he desperatly wanted to pull Naruto away from the pain completly but the knife in his stomach just kept absorbing the chakra that he was trying to use to heal Naruto and push the blade out. **"I need you to do something for me Naruto." **The Kyuubi asked as gently as he could.

"W...what?"

**"Pull the knife out."**

"But it hurts." Naruto sobbed, looking down at the hilt sticking from his shirt which was stained red with blood, he didn't want to touch it touching it would make it hurt even worse and pulling it out would hurt a lot too. Naruto shook his head. "I don't want to."

**"Listen kit I can't make the pain go away until it's out." **

"I don't want to." The Kyuubi growled and was startled when Naruto flinched, it seemed that he really could hear everything now but if he couldn't sweet talk naruto into it then he would have to force him.

**"That blade isnt going to go anywhere on its own, you need to pull it out." ** The Kyuubi yelled, before adding a little more gently. **"I'll make the pain go away Kit, I always do, it won't hurt if you let me help you. I promise."**

Nodding Naruto slowly grabbed hole of the knife's hilt, breathing heavily as the blade moved ever so slightly inside of him, nothing could be do to stop the fresh tears or the bloody scream as Naruto ripped the blade from his stomach the jagged egdes cutting into his skin as he removed the blade.

The moment that he dropped the knife Naruto felt a kind of mental tug almost like he was falling asleep but different.

**"Don't fight it kit, let me help you." ** Naruto did as he was told and was shocked when he felt warm water splash over his body and he found himself ina sewer system. Thick pulsing red pipes crisscrossed the walls, intertwined with tiny blue ones that were almost invisable against them.

** "Kit." **The Kyuubi's voice echoed throughout the sewer sending small ripples through the water.

"Wha..."

**"Follow the pipes." ** Standing up Naruto realised with joy that his wounds were gone, and started running towards the source of the pipes to see his mysterious guardian over the past seven years. When Naruto finally turned the last corner he wasn't prepared to find the nines tails locked behind a giant pair of metal gates.

"What are you?" He stamered, staring at the giant fox that began studing him. The Kyuubi huffed moving as close to the bars as he could while smirking slightly.

**"I'm hurt Kit, you don't reconise me?" **Naruto's eyes widened as the Kyuubi's smirk turned into a full smile.

"That voice." Naruto whispered moving closer to the cage as he put the pieces together.

**"That's right Naruto it's me." **

"What are you?" Naruto was suprised when the Kyuubi motioned for him to come closer with a giant paw.

**"I guess i shouldn't be suprised that you don't know who i am, it's not like anyone in ****the village actually cares about you enough to tell you." **The Kyuubi didnt miss the way Naruto looked at the floor ashamed. **"That's not your fault Kit, it's mine, I'm the nine tailed fox." **

"But the fourth Hokage killed you didn't he?" Naruto asked the celerbrations were on his birthday.

**"No kit, you can't kill a tailed beast, well not forever anyway, the fourth sealed me inside of you, you became my host. Thats why the village hates you, thats why they look at like that, thats why every year they try and kill you on your birthday." **Everyone in the village knew the story of the Kyuubi and the fourth Hokage, it was a greatstory told to make everyone understand the greatness of the fourth, considered to be the greatest of the four Hokage's, the man that never made a wasted move.

"Why did no one tell me!" Naruto screamed up at the Kyuubi, he didn't notice how close to the bars he really was, only a few metres seperated him from the nine tails. "Why do the hate me because of you?"

**"The third must have passed a law to prevent anyone telling you or I'm sure that everyone who knew would be tormenting you with the fact, and they don't exactly hate you Naruto, they hate me, but when they look at you all they really see is me... All they see is a monster." **

"But you're not...You're kind...you've helped me...You always help me." Naruto grabbed his head in frustration. "I don't get it, you're not a mosnter."

**"Shhh, come here kit." ** The Kyuubi whispered as he shrank down to the size of a large wolf and nuzzled warmly against Naruto when he came through the bars. It came as a pleasent surprise when Naruto buried his head in the Kyuubi's fur and wrapped his arms around the foxes neck as best he could. **"I hate them Naruto, i hate them all, I was forced to attack the village all those years ago and while i hate being controlled more that anything in this world or any other i was happy to do it. This village has bound me for over a hundred years and i hate them for it." **

"Do you hate me?" Naruto asked weakly, obviously fearing the answer, but the Kyuubi just chuckled nuzzling his host.

**"Never, I realised that i could one day possibley forgive this village for sealing me again and again but i will never forgive them for how they treated you." **

"What should i do?"

**"What do you mean."**

"I dont want to stay here anymore, I...I." Naruto started sobbing into the Kyuubi's fur.

**"Say it."** The nine tails whispered, he could tell exactly what Naruto was going to say and already had a plan forming in his mind.

"I HATE THEM ALL!" Naruto screamed. "I just want to leave, i just want to get away from here."

**"Wait a week and I promise that i'll help you get away from the village." Naruto looked into the foxes blood red eyes.**

"Why not now?" The blonde pleaded.

**"You've just been attacked kit, it'll take time for you to completly heal even with me helping you, and i don't think that you'll want to travel alone, wait a week and i garenty that you'll have a friend with you." **Gently guiding himself and Naruto to the floor the Kyuubi curled around his host so naruto had a nice soft bed of fur to lean against. **"Go to sleep kit, I'll wake you up when you're needed." **

"Thank you Kyu." The nine tails gave the boy a sideways look for the nickname not that the blonde noticed, he was already asleep. "Love you." It toom a while for Naruto's words to sink in but as the Kyuubi rested his head onto his front paws he couldn't help but smile.

_**'I'm supposed to instil fear and destruction not love, but... i love you too kit.'**_

(Present)

**"It's time Kit." ** Naruto smirked as he got the silent message, he looked critically at the ANBU standing guard, before lunging at him, while Naruto was still far too young to handle even a small amount of the Kyuubi's emmense amount of chakra he could handle a small enough burst that would be enough to knock one ANBU black ops out. As Naruto colided with the ninja they both flew into a wall, luckly the ANBU's head took most of the impact which knocked him out fairly quickly. Naruto used the time to pack everything that he would need into a small backpack before heading out, at this time he wasnt too worried about people seeing him jumping on rooftops, it was still fairly early in the evening and people were used to ninja running around.

'_Where am i going Kyu?'_ Naruto had gotten into the habit of using his new friends nickname over the past few weeks.

**"Here." **Kyu sent a mental picture of a small pier that extended into a lake near the Uchiha compound.

_'Why?'_ Naruto moaned he really wanted to just leave and running around only increased the chances of him being caught by another shinobi.

**"Cas i said so, and trust me, you'll thank me later." **Kyu smirked, swishing his tails around happily as he thought about the boys reaction.

Naruto groaned but did as he was told, he did trust the Kyuubi and having a friend on the road would be easier then traveling alone not to metion traveling alone would be kind of lonely even if he did have Kyu, but a voice in his head wasnt the same as an actual person.

"So who exactly am i going to...find?" Naruto stopped dead when he saw Sasuke sat alone at the end of the pier. The young Uchiha was sat staring intently at his own reflection luckily Naruto was far enough away for him not to notice his presense. "Sasuke. You want me to ask Sasuke to come? Are you crazy he wont leave his brother or his family." Naruto whispered hiding behind a corner so he could watch Sasuke without him noticeing.

**"His clan has been wiped out." **The Kyuubi said with a small measure of satisfaction.

"How do you know that?" Naruto demanded, he hadnt left the apartment in weeks and unless he missed Kakashi say it by acident then there was no way...

**"I can sense an Uchiha miles away Naruto, and trust me, when an entire clan gets wiped out i take notice. Trust me he'll go with you, he has no where else to go." **

"Who did it?"

**"His older brother and another Uchiha, one who i want to personally kill some day." **Naruto ignored Kyu's comment and stared at Sasuke, _His brother, but he seemed so kind, how could he? _

"You're sure?" Naruto asked as he started moving towards his friend, it felt good to think that and actually mean it.

**"I'm sure Kit, he won't say no." **

Swallowing a lump that formed in his throat Naruto marched out onto the pier, Sasuke heard him coming and looked up with a scowl, obviously he didn't want to be interuped, but it fell away at the sight of Naruto. The blonde couldnt even begin to imagine what he must have been feeling, destraught at having his clan torn away, hate towards his brother, a little happiness and comfort at Naruto being there and maybe even a little concern for him.

"Hey." Sasuke said weakly, as Naruto sat down, shugging his bag off behind him.

"Hey, I heard what happened, I'm so sorry." Naruto said clumsily, they sat in a comfortable silence after that, just enjoying each others company, Naruto even reconsidered leaving, he was enjoying being here with Sasuke. He could tell that Kyu was getting impateint but he didnt care, he was trying desperatly to come up with something to say, at last he just sighed going with what he felt was the right thing.

"I think... I know how you feel." Naruto said slowly, he didn't miss Sasuke's head leap up to confront him with angry eyes but he kept taking so the Uchiha wouldn't have a chance to stop him with an angry rant. "I don't know how it feels to lose your clan and family, i dont know how it feels to lose anything really i mean i've never had anything important to lose, but the hate, the anger... the pain." Naruto whispered, clutching his chest as he turned to look Sasuke in the eye. "The realisation that no one will ever care for you, that you'll be alone forever and knowing that there's nothing that you can do that will change it, knowing that even if you could go back you couldn't change a thing, no matter how many times you tried... Knowing that you were powerless to stop it happening right before your very eyes." Naruto smiled when he saw a single tear slide down Sasuke's face, the boy had gone back to staring at his reflection in the water, and the Kyuubi chuckled inside of him

**"Well done Kit, he's hooked."**

"I'm leaving the village." Naruto announced suddenly, Sasuke stared at him fearfully his eyes almost pleading with him to stay, Naruto didn't blame him, he was probably the last thing Sasuke cared about even if it was only a little. "If you think staying in this cursed village is going to get you enough power to avenge your clan then you're not only wrong but a fool, most of your clan were leaf shinobi and Itachi cut right through them." Naruto smirked in triumph as he heard Sasuke walking behind him.

**Note: ** ohh cliffhanger, what trouble are they going to get up to together out in the big wide world?


	4. Chapter 4: Return

"Why are we coming back here?"

"I've already told you why."

"But why here, we know the demon of the hidden mist is in the land of the waves can't we just kill him and use his sword as a bargaining chip?"

"They are in the middle of a civil war because of the bloodline purges."

"That's only a problem for you."

"And my problems are your problems."

"Fine we could still bargain with the Raikage though couldn't we, they have a thing for swords as well."

"He would never let us leave and would probably start a war because of you."

"You really think that he could stop me?"

"I think an entire village could stop you."

"Fine but why this one?"

"We need them to trust us."

"You mean we need them to trust you, and we need them to think that you're holding my leash."

"Hey you two stop there!" A pair of leaf shinobi called, Naruto glared as they walked up to them blocking their path into the village, not that Naruto cared he didn't want to be back in this village one bit.

"Is there a problem?" Sasuke asked a lot more calm and composed that Naruto was, the shinobi gave them a look over before one asked.

"What does a pair of kids like you want in the hidden leaf?"

"We're here to become ninja." Sasuke answered before Naruto could make a comment that he would regret.

"Alright then report to the Hokage's office then you can't miss it." One of the leaf ninja said with a smile handing them both a ledger to sign, his eyes widened as he read the names but made no move to stop them as they walked into the village.

Naruto wanted nothing more to growl and tear their throats out, but both Kyu and Sasuke had told him to keep it under control and when the nine tails says that you're a bit too violent you tend to pay attention.

It had been six years since Naruto and Sasuke left the village and their time outside of the village had changed them, both physically and mentally. Naruto now wore black arm guards that came up to his elbows, visible thanks to the sleeves on his coat being cut off from the elbow down, they looked like a large fingerless gloves, but had a flexible metal lining that made them as strong as a sword, he wore a black sleeveless shirt with a deep red Uzumaki spiral on the back, along with black trousers and ninja sandals, a straight blade Katana was strapped to his back as well, the blade darker than night while the hilt had an intricate red weave. Naruto's appearance had changed a great deal as well, not long after he learned of the Kyuubi he had started to tap into his vast reserves of chakra and now he was permanently in his initial jinchuriki state, although thankfully his eyes had changed back to their original colour with the exception of the slit iris that he now had, he was also able to control the Kyuubi's chakra much more easily now without losing control, but his hair was longer and permanently spiky thanks to the Kyuubi's chakra.

Sasuke wore a grey high-collared short-sleeved shirt with the Uchiha crest plainly visible on his back along with dark blue trousers and ninja sandals; Sasuke's hair was longer than when he left, his own sword, identical to Naruto's, was secured to his waist by a dark blue belt, he also had a pair of blue wrist warmers on each arm.

As they walked towards the Hokage tower Naruto resisted the urge to growl at the villagers that looked his way, the marks of his possession hadn't faded over the years and had actually become more visible ever since he took up the Initial state permanently and it was drawing a lot of whispers and looks that Naruto didn't like. The village must have heard that their demon had disappeared along with their last Uchiha; Naruto wouldn't be surprised if they thought that he killed Sasuke and ran away. That was until he noticed that it was in fact Sasuke that they were staring at not Naruto, the Uchiha crest on his back was unmistakable, and people were already whispering to each other about the genius boy returning.

"Haven't they got anything better to do?" Naruto growled quietly so that only Sasuke would hear, he had to keep the appearance of being calm and collected if this was going to work, but the stares were starting to make him feel uneasy and agitated, even if they weren't directed at him.

"Just ignore them we'll be out of sight soon enough." Sasuke said, the pair had decided long ago that Sasuke should lead; he was after all smarter than Naruto and could come up with a plan better than the overly emotional blond. Not that being emotional was his fault; the Kyuubi's chakra intensified all his emotions both good and bad.

"Do we have to be here, please there are other villages?" Naruto almost begged, he really didn't like being back here, a lot of painful memories were hitting him full force as they wandered the streets.

**"Stop whining like newborn after its mother Kit, you agreed to his plan and he makes a good point, you need to be here!"** Naruto flinched as Kyu screamed in his head.

"I don't suppose you want to repeat what he said do you?" Sasuke asked, he always seemed to notice when the Kyuubi talked to him and after Naruto started to use the initial state he found it impossible to keep the truth away from him, Naruto had been afraid that Sasuke would run back to the village or at the very least stop being his friend but the Uchiha had taken it in stride saying it didn't matter to him.

"He told me to stop whining." Naruto said looking up as they reached the Hokage's tower. It didn't take long for them to get an audience after Sasuke gave his name and before long they were stood in front of the third Hokage, the old man was dressed in the typical red Hokage robes with his hat off to the side of the desk. As the pair of youths entered his office the third looked up from the papers gathered on his desk and slowly leaned back into his chair, his eyes studying them intently. Naruto felt uncomfortable as he was being examined, he didn't like the way the old man seemed to be able to get under his skin just by looking at him. If Sasuke had a problem with it he was hiding it better than Naruto was. After what seemed like hours to Naruto Hiruzen decided to speak.

"I never thought that I would see either of you again." He said slowly looking pointedly between the two; Naruto could feel his anger spike as the old man met his gaze.

"Not as if I wanted to see you either." Naruto blurted before he could stop himself, he felt Sasuke tense beside him and the Kyuubi growl inside his mind.

**"Damn it Kit, keep your mouth shut." **Naruto settled down almost immediately and looked out the windows behind the Hokage, he needed to stay calm, and as much as he hated this plan he had agreed to it and wouldn't intentionally muck it up. Hiruzen stared at Naruto for some time before he spoke again, Naruto was afraid he had already said too much, Sasuke was still tensed beside him and the Kyuubi was radiating a killing intent around Naruto's mind to keep the boy shut up until someone else spoke.

"Why have you two come back, you must have been able to take care of yourselves while you were away from the village?" The old man said gesturing to their clothes and swords. "Unless you stole those." Despite the Kyuubi's best efforts Naruto could feel himself about to blurt something out about how they weren't thieves but Sasuke beat him to it.

"We want to become ninja." Sasuke said without hesitation or doubt in his voice, the thrid man raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

"Both of you?" He asked looking pointedly at Naruto. _Damn it he knows I don't really want this! _With an effort Naruto tore his gaze away from the window to look at the framed portraits of the four Hokage's, his eyes went past the first Hokage, Naruto could feel the Kyuubi's hate spill towards the long dead legend, instead Naruto looked at the portrait of the fourth Hokage, the one who sealed the nine tailed fox inside of him.

"I want to follow in my parent's footsteps." Naruto said softly, the shock on Hiruzen's face didn't go unnoticed by the two boys who stood in front of him, Naruto felt a wave of triumph flow through his at the old man's face, _'Did he really think he could keep me in the dark when my father was the one who sealed you into me?'_ Naruto asked the Kyuubi who merely huffed in response. It didn't take long for Hiruzen to collect himself again.

"I'll have you both signed up for some rushed classes so you can take the exam as soon as possible." The third said after a few minutes, Naruto smirked inwardly he knew that he hit a soft spot in the old man.

_'He must feel guilty about what happened to his successor's son.'_ Naruto thought.

**"I think you're right there Kit, remember that, it could come in handy at some point."**

_'Understood.'_

"There's no need for us to take any classes we are more than capable of passing the entrance exam as we are." Sasuke said swiftly making the third raise an eyebrow in surprise.

"I see." He said slowly, pulling a small book out from his desk, after a few minutes the old man seemed to find the page he was looking for as he nodded to himself. "Well I'll have someone show you to the academy so you can do it right away; one of the instructors there should help you fill out the paperwork." The third said making a small gesture before an ANBU appeared by his side, Naruto and Sasuke tensed instantly and started to reach for their swords before they realised who was by the Hokage's side. The ANBU ignored them and seemed to disappear the moment he had a small pair of letters in his hand but the old man gave them a critical stare. "I look forward to seeing how much you've grown." He said with a genuine smile as a ninja entered the room and ushered them out of the Hokage's office. Naruto resisted the urge to yell, they could both remember where the academy was and didn't need to be 'escorted there like two children', he knew Sasuke felt the same way but the damned Uchiha kept his face so blank at times that it was impossible to tell.

"So you're Sasuke Uchiha right?" the ninja walking with them asked after they left the Hokage tower, he didn't look like much to Naruto, wearing the standard leaf shinobi gear with his head band tied tightly to his forehead and a short head of brown hair, Naruto chuckled lightly as he sensed the man's chakra levels, they were pitiful.

"Yes, why do you ask?" Sasuke answered, his voice polite enough to anyone who didn't know him but to Naruto it was thick with irritation, while he had been largely unrecognised by the villagers with only a few people noticing the similarities and the possession marks, no one missed the Uchiha crest stamped onto Sasuke's back, and Naruto knew that there was going to be a serious fuss about the last loyal Uchiha returning to the village to become a ninja.

"It just seems ironic, you coming back to become shinobi now when the class at the academy that you would have been in are only days away from their own graduation exams." He chuckled while Naruto gave an almost inaudible growl at the man's sense of humour.

**"What's wrong kit?" **The Kyuubi asked noticing Naruto's rising frustration as Naruto clenched his fists.

_"If this year's class haven't had their graduation exams yet that means that me and Sasuke are going to lumped onto a team with someone else!" _Naruto practically screamed in his mind, already drawing up horridly inaccurate images of people in his head.

**"And why is that a problem, they'd be a pain but..."**

_"A PAIN?" _Naruto interrupted. _"You remember how they acted around Sasuke when we were kids, the girls threw themselves at him while the guys were all jealous or...or... I don't know but who ever we get on our team will probably be a girl so she'll just be hanging off of his arm, not to mention she'll probably be a weakling that will just slow us down." _Naruto's anger flared again when he heard his tenant laugh to himself great booming laughs that seemed to echo around Naruto's mind.

**"You're the jealous one aren't you, you just want someone to throw themselves at you don't you?"**

_"If anyone throws themselves at me I'll be sure to impale them." _Naruto smirked, his tone deadly serious.

"**That's the spirit kit; they won't be so quick to do it a second time." **The Kyuubi laughed, as Naruto glared at the academy when it came into view, he hated the place it was the source of so many bad memories that he had locked away over the years. He couldn't always keep the memories of what happened to him in this place or anywhere in the village suppressed sometimes one would be able to surface and plague his dreams, the Kyuubi always stepped in and stopped them when the nightmares started to affect him too much but Naruto didn't want to have to spend every night curled up in the Kyuubi's fur.

He knew Sasuke had similar dreams and didn't have the benefit of Naruto's night time guardian to help him but Naruto never asked him about it, just like Sasuke never asked him about what happened to him when he was younger, they were best friends but when it came to what happened in their past's they wanted to keep what happened to themselves.

The ninja escorting them turned to look at Naruto's possession marks when they finally reached the academy, he gave them a critical stare as if he knew what they were but couldn't remember them.

"Do I know you kid?" He asked, looking at his blond hair and blue eyes. "You look familiar."

"No you don't." Sasuke said quickly cutting off any hasty remark that Naruto could make while dragging the blond into the academy before the ninja could ask any more questions.

"I wasn't going to do anything." Naruto hissed glaring at the back of Sasuke's head as he was dragged along. The raven haired boy gave him a level look that made Naruto look at the floor. "Ok maybe... but he was getting on my nerves." Naruto admitted as they walked around the academy, with the graduation exams only a few days away the examination room wasn't that hard to find and after a little talk with one of the academies instructors their paperwork was all filled out and they were given the requirements for the exam, Naruto mentally cursed as he saw the clone technique, because of the almost ridiculous amount of chakra running through him creating even a thousand life like clones was impossible for him, the rest was easy, Naruto and Sasuke had mastered the academy sparring techniques in their six years and were steadily creating their own individual styles and there chakra was far from perfect but they were well above the level that was required of a genin.

"I'll go first." Sasuke said flashing a hint of the sharingan to Naruto.

"Good luck." Naruto said humourlessly, growling as he recognised one of the instructors in the room. _'Had to be that bastard didn't it?'_ Naruto thought a mixture of hate and fear welling up inside of him.

"**Keep it together Naruto, you have nothing to be afraid of, he can't hurt you and he can't control you."** The Kyuubi reassured forcing Naruto to take a deep breath, he could feel the giant fox ready to pull him into his mindscape if he started to lose it.

'_Damn it Kyu it's been six years! How can I still be this weak?'_ Naruto asked leaning heavily against a wall as he tried to control his breathing, a rush of memories surfacing all at once, too many for the Kyuubi to suppress for him. A unrelenting string of beatings some that landed Naruto in the hospital and others that ended with him curled up in a dark alley somewhere in the village, somewhere where nobody would find him, they would always drag him off the main streets but no one would care they would just glare at him, their eyes so cold and full of hate Naruto didn't know how he lived through it all. As the flood of memories kept coming Naruto could feel his anger rising, he could feel the beginnings of the Kyuubi's chakra cloak start to seep out of his chakra system and the bloodlust starting to override his self control.

"Naruto it's your turn." Sasuke's voice cut through the red haze in his mind forcing the blond to look up into the burning red eyes of the Uchiha, Naruto instantly felt his anger fall, the sharingan forcing his emotions to return to normal. Sasuke offered him a smile and put a hand gently on his shoulder when he had calmed down enough.

"Just be patient I promise we'll both get what we want." Sasuke whispered, returning Naruto to his normal self. Taking a shuddered breath Naruto nodded and smiled back at the raven haired boy when he noticed the headband in his hand.

"If you can do it then it can't be that hard can it?" Naruto joked walking into the room.

As Naruto went through the paces of yet another tai jutsu kata he began to wonder just how long he had been waiting outside for Sasuke, it had only felt like a few minutes to him but this exam was just stretching on and on for him, from tai jutsu techniques to shuriken and kunai accuracy and even chakra control the only thing left for him to do was the clone jutsu but Naruto hoped that he didn't have to...

"Now the clone jutsu." The examiner said, looking up from his score sheet, Naruto groaned inwardly, before a rush of confidence swept through him as he made the hand sign.

'_Ok Kyu help me here, I'll use the least amount of chakra I can and make a dozen clones, you limit my chakra as much as you can.' _Naruto ordered, hopeful that he might actually be able to produce an actual clone.

"**It won't work." **The Kyuubi sighed but did as he was asked when Naruto started to put chakra into the technique, even with them both trying to limit it there was just too much to produce a life like clone, and true to the Kyuubi's word the moment the smoke cleared from Naruto's jutsu twelve sickly white clones were laying all around the floor.

'_Sasuke's going to kill me.'_ Naruto thought looking at the examiners faces, a mixture of shock and amusement made Naruto's anger spike, _'They wanted me to fail, that's why this was taking so long!'_

"Impressive twelve perfect clones, top marks Naruto." Naruto looked at the examiner like he had just grown a second head, and looked back at his clones, even going so far to wipe his eyes to make sure that he wasn't seeing things, his clones were awful, most looked like they were already dead, one was even moaning!

"Err...thanks, can I go now?" Naruto asked dispelling the jutsu and wondering how anyone ever actually failed this exam with such stupid examiners.

'_Are they even shinobi?'_ Naruto thought when they handed him a standard issue head band and a copy of the form with his results on it, both of which he quickly took and left the room. What he saw outside though freaked him out much more. Sasuke was outside leaning against the wall desperately trying to suppress a fit of laughter when Naruto left the room. It took a moment for Naruto to realise why.

"You!" He practically screamed at him, Sasuke had placed a gen jutsu on them. "That's unethical." Naruto said plainly walking past Sasuke as he tied the headband around his head, at first he felt a little disgusted that he was labelling himself as part of the village but somehow it felt right, the headband felt natural to him.

"You had no idea did you?" Sasuke asked walking up beside Naruto, his laughing replaced by a very creepy happy smile, his own headband fastened around his forehead.

"I didn't think you could do it for mine I knew that you could easily make them believe that you were the first brought back from the grave, but I didn't think you could make them think that my clones actually looked like me." Naruto said quietly as both students and teachers walked past them the academy was closing for the day and outside was a bustle of activity, the crowd made Naruto nervous he was constantly clenching and unclenching his fists and looking back and forth rapidly. Sasuke picked up on this pretty quickly and lead him away from the academy, back to the Hokage's tower. They hadn't even been gone an hour before they were in front of the Hokage again.

The old man immediately asked for their results and began looking them over, Naruto shifted nervously as the old man seemed to skip straight to a certain part of their scores before chuckling to himself, Naruto could clearly see that he was looking at his exam sheet from how it was crumpled from him clenching up in his fist.

"So tell me how did you manage to fool the examiners?" Hiruzen asked giving them an amused look. Naruto and Sasuke just glanced at each other wondering how the hell the old man could have picked up on that, there was no way the examiners could have gotten here before them and even then if they knew Sasuke had used his sharingan on them why give either of them a passing grade at all?

"Naruto I know for a fact that your mother could never create a life like clone her entire life and that was because of the Kyuubi's chakra alone, you on the other hand have a huge amount of chakra without the Kyuubi so there is no way you could make a clone even if you did try twelve to spread out your chakra." He said gesturing to the form, before swiftly tearing it in half, shocking both boys into silence, Naruto even went so far as to begin to untie his head band. _I knew this was a bad idea. _He thought to himself.

"Don't take that off Naruto." Hiruzen ordered, stopping Naruto in his tracks. "Your both shinobi of this village now but I want to know everything that you can do, I don't want to know that you can pass the academy test with a simple gen jutsu even if it does tell me that you have at least some level of control over your sharingan Sasuke." Sasuke's eyes went wide as he heard this; they thought that they would be able to keep that a secret for at least a little while. "Naruto's inability to make clones also makes him unable to cast a gen jutsu effectively; he'd have to actually be touching them to cast it."

"Yes I have unlocked the sharingan." Sasuke conceded after a few moments, Hiruzen nodded to himself and made a note on a piece of paper.

"Well then I want to put you both through your paces to see what both of you can really do, having both your sharingan, Sasuke and the Kyuubi's chakra, I have noticed your eyes Naruto, and the possession marks are much more prominent then before, I know that you're using his chakra even as we speak." Hiruzen explained, as Naruto looked at him with badly concealed shock. "It will put you both into a heavy combat squad in the long run and I want to see exactly what the pair of you can do, and I already have your third team member picked..."

"We don't need one; they'll only slow us down!" Naruto suddenly snapped, making the third and Sasuke look at him. "Just give us a babysitter and be done with it." Sasuke only spared a few seconds to try and gauge his emotions before turning to look back at the third, the old man however spent a long time staring at Naruto only looking away when Naruto couldn't hold his gaze anymore.

'_The old fool could probably stare a hole through solid metal.'_ Naruto thought bitterly as he shifted his feet yet again, he was getting really tired with being put on the spot like this, he couldn't do a thing to the man and he knew it.

"Sakura Hanoru has as close to perfect chakra control that I've ever seen, better even than even my former student and as such has the potential to become an excellent medical ninja and for that purpose will be assigned to your team, its mandatory for squads like the one you two are going to be in to have a potential medic ninja." The third explained, before turning his attention to a piece of paper he was holding. "Their graduation exams are in two days you will need to be at the academy along with all the other students the day after that to meet your 'babysitter' as you put it Naruto but until then you can both do whatever pleases you, there is a hefty sum of money for you both outside to set you up before you begin your missions and start getting paid, but until then you are free to do as you will."

"I would prefer to stay in the Uchiha compound if that is possible." Sasuke said, drawing Naruto's attention to the raven haired boy, _"He really wants to live there again after what happened, why?"_

"**I think he wants to prove to you that he's willing to make the same sacrifice as you." **The Kyuubi said, sensing Naruto's confusion. The third seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Naruto because he was searching Sasuke's face for something, the Uchiha stood and took the search as best he could but even he shifted about after a few moments.

"'_But I haven't sacrificed anything and I don't want him to go back there if it's just going to hurt him." _Naruto argued, Hiruzen had asked Sasuke to sign a form for him, giving Naruto enough time to talk before Sasuke noticed him.

**"Naruto just being near this village hurts you, remember what happened back at the academy? Sasuke is the only other person aside from me who has even the slightest idea of what this village has done to you." **The Kyuubi argued, making Naruto realise just how right he was, if Sasuke hadn't learnt how to stop Naruto's anger outbreaks they would have both dies years ago and he knew exactly what caused them because of his sharingan. **"Sasuke knows that this village hurts you kit, he knows that being here is going to be hard for you, this is his way of showing you that he's not just coming back here to suit his own purposes." **

"I'll make sure that power is turned on at the main house before the end of the day." Hiruzen said, breaking Naruto out of his apparent daydream, Sasuke smiled at Naruto as the third turned to look at the blond. "And where do you plan on staying Naruto?"

"Erm I guess I'm living with him." Naruto said hopefully looking at Sasuke. Hiruzen nodded as if he were expecting it and motioned for him to come over and sign a piece of paper, from the quick glance Naruto took it looked like a form to reinstate him as a citizen of Konoha.

"Here take this as well Naruto." The third said handing him a small scroll. "With the level of chakra that you and the Kyuubi can produce together I think that you will find it a fitting technique."

"**If the old fool knows that I'm giving you my chakra then he should be quaking in fear! My power is all you will ever need, who does he think I am!"** Naruto had to use all his will power not to flinch as he took the scroll and walked out of the room. **"He noticed my presence and the Uchiha's cursed eyes very quickly, though maybe he's no so foolish." ** The Kyuubi growled once he has stopped seething at the thirds apparent insult to him, Naruto didn't blame him, if he could pick up on those things that easily then how long would it take him to figure out what he and Sasuke were really up to here.

'_He'll probably have someone tailing us.'_ Naruto thought, looking behind him, the old man's eyes were fixed to the sheet in his hands but Naruto still got the feeling that he was being watched. Growling he charged past the ninja waiting to give them a bulging wallet each and stormed out of the tower. The Kyuubi anger was leaking into him and he needed something to do, he couldn't just stand around.

"So what do we do now?" Naruto demanded, glaring at Sasuke as they wandered into the village with Naruto casting a glare filled with so much killing intent that even shinobi didn't dare trying to talk to Sasuke who had both wallets in his hand.

"We'll need to fix up my old house." Sasuke admitted, chucking a wallet to Naruto, before quickly pocketing his own. "After six years it will probably take a while to get everything back in working order again, we also need some shinobi gear."

"That's not what I..." Sasuke cast Naruto a sideways glace as the blonds stomach growled loudly.

"But we need something to eat first." He smirked watching Naruto's embarrassed smile.

"Alright, we haven't eaten anything all day but this whole plan sucks." Naruto mumbled, while he was still incredibly angry he really did need something to eat, sniffing the air he flashing Sasuke a feral grin. "I smell barbeque." Sasuke smirked as they wandered off into the village, following Naruto's nose.


	5. Chapter 5: Sakura

**KitElizaKing: ****Yeah your right if Sasuke betrays Naruto then it will destroy him, but the same could be said for Sasuke couldn't it. Sasuke and Naruto have been together for six years depending on each other like brothers, so if Naruto betrays Sasuke, he could be crushed as well, don't you agree?**

**12417: ****hehe sorry I'm not very good with updating quickly.**

**Tigrezztail: **** yep, hard to overcharge someone when you're dead **

**Ok I know I put Kakashi up as the second Character in this fic and that he has only made a very small appearance compared to everyone else, but trust me he is going to become a major part in this fic as much as or maybe even more so than Sasuke. **

In the two days since Naruto and Sasuke arrived back in the hidden leaf village they found their time less than relaxing, the Uchiha complex had been abandoned after the massacre although thankfully the entire complex had been cleared after the incident and any damages had long since been repaired, Naruto didn't know how Sasuke would have taken it if there were still blood stains on the walls after six years, the raven haired Uchiha didn't show it much but his body was tense and he had been jumpy ever since they had entered the estate.

Sasuke's old house was more like a single floored mansion than an actual house, Naruto had no idea the clans had homes this big in their compounds and he couldn't help but be relieved when he learned that there were two spare bedrooms, he wouldn't have know how to feel about sleeping in Sasuke's older brothers room or even his parents old room. The house itself was in good condition, aside from the inch thick layer of dust that had accumulated over the years and a small family of mice that had decided to make their home there, the only problem were the old sheets; ruined by said mice. Naruto and Sasuke spent most of the first day buying groceries and things for the house, although neither of them had relished the idea of buying new sheets, they were both bright red after discussing what to get and almost feinted when they had to ask for help, much to the Kyuubi's amusement. It took hours of cleaning and sorting to bring the house back up to working order and by the end of it both of them were moaning about how cold it was, the power still hadn't been turned on by the time they finished so there was no heating in the house and in the end they settled for some snack food and retired to their respective rooms.

The next morning Naruto woke up with a delicious scent wafting through the house, thanks to the Kyuubi Naruto's nose was almost as sensitive as an Inuzuka's and after a mouth watering breakfast went to work learning the jutsu in the scroll that Hiruzen had given him, much to the Kyuubi's displeasure.

'_The shadow clone Jutsu?'_, Naruto wondered why the old man had given him another clone jutsu, after he himself said that his mother couldn't do it her entire life, even Kyu's interest was piqued at that point, his curiosity overriding his anger at the apparent insult to his pride that the Hokage had delivered. They were both wondering until Naruto actually tried the technique, it required about a thousand times the amount of chakra that the standard clone jutsu used so Naruto was easily able to form dozens of clones at once and much to his ever increasing happiness at that point any shadow clone that he made at that point was solid, not just an illusion. Sasuke disappeared for most of the morning, leaving Naruto training in the gardens behind the house and reappeared with a handful of scrolls that held the instructions to the Uchiha clan's fire style techniques as well as dozens of other techniques that the masters of the sharingan had been able to record over the years.

They both spent the rest of the day training, Naruto seemed to master the shadow clone jutsu quite and Sasuke handed him a scroll that had some wind style jutsu recorded on it, they learned long ago that Naruto's charka affinity was wind and because Sasuke's was fire they both agreed to learn jutsu that would complement each other. After a while they decided to spar choosing to practice their sword and hand to hand combat forms. Despite using the Kyuubi's chakra permanently Naruto and Sasuke were evenly matched whenever they sparred, Sasuke's sharingan was only at its second stage and could only able to follow about half of Naruto's movements but his attack's were precise and did maximum damage when the Uchiha hit the only problem was that Naruto had the stamina of a jinchuriki and wouldn't stay down, Naruto's attacks on the other hand were brutal almost savage but always well timed and aimed, and thanks to the Kyuubi's chakra, devastating if they were able to connect. All in all their sparring sessions were intense and left them exhausted.

They used to spar for only a few hours at a time at most when they were out of the village but something spurred them both on now that they were back inside its walls and they kept trading blows for hours and hours only stopping when they literally collapsed after landing a particularly heavy hit to each other.

It took them both more than a few minutes to recover with Naruto holding his face hoping that his nose wasn't broken again and Sasuke clenching his stomach struggling to keep his breakfast down after Naruto's punch, and yet despite wanting nothing more than to pass out Sasuke could help but laugh.

"What are you laughing about, you're stomach has got to hurt as much as my face does right now." Naruto asked sitting up slowly while fiddling with his nose to make sure it was in the right place. "Kami, you broke my nose again, what's that make the seventh or eighth time this month, I thought we were friends?" Naruto whined wincing as the Kyuubi's chakra spread around his system and fixed his nose, watching with a mild interest as the small cuts and bruises on his body started to heal rapidly. Kyu was trying to teach Naruto to not rely on his ability to heal almost anything too much, _**'just because you could survive a hand being shoved through your chest doesn't mean that you should let it happen.'**_ He argued one day and since then had stopped healing Naruto's wounds until after the sparing session was over, somehow the Kyuubi managed to regulate his chakra even while he was asleep because the great demon fox had decided that Naruto and Sasuke's sparring session was boring and dozed off hours ago. The absence of Naruto's healing ability also gave Sasuke a better chance at winning since Naruto didn't recover from everything in a matter of seconds and let the Uchiha actually deal some damage to his friend.

"Ninth actually and I am your friend dope." Sasuke corrected with a small smile as he sat up slowly, he was considerably paler than before as he looked over at Naruto. "This reminds me of those Iwa ninja, you remember the ones we met after that job to the borders village?" Naruto tried and failed to suppress the grin that split across his face as he recalled a particularly arrogant and thick headed Iwa genin that the pair had the good fortune of meeting.

Back when Naruto and Sasuke left the hidden leaf six years ago the first thing they did was head for the boarder of the country thinking that when they crossed it no Konoha ninja would be able to follow them and a few weeks after they escaped the village they managed to cross the border into the waterfall country without seeing a single ninja from either Konoha or Taki.

The first thing they did was find a local village and get some work, the academy taught basic survival training every year so they were able to survive on their own but not much more than that and decided that working for someone in one of the small village's was a good idea. It didn't matter that they were only children either, the fact that they could use chakra practically made them as strong as any young adult and they were able to get a simple job with a travelling caravan that traded goods with the villages around the waterfall country, it paid more than enough for them to buy what they needed to survive and the travelling meant they never stayed in one place for too long, they didn't want to risk the chance of some Konoha ninja tracking them down because they stayed in one place.

After a year of travelling, the caravan was trading goods at the border of the country with some Iwa ninja, it was dangerous because the villages of Iwa and Taki weren't on the best of terms but the head of the caravan told Naruto and Sasuke that there was good money in trading over the borders and decided to risk it. As Naruto thought back he was glad that the old man decided to risk the deal.

When they reached the border of earth country they found a squad of genin with their jounin 'babysitter' waiting to seal up the promised supplies and take them back across the border. While most of the others in their little group just ignored the ninja Naruto and Sasuke couldn't help but glare at the Iwa ninja, even after leaving Konoha they couldn't shake off the intense dislike towards them that had been instilled into both the villages of Iwa and Konoha after the third shinobi war, their obvious glares didn't go unnoticed either. While the jounin sensei simply ignored them choosing to deal with the supply caravans head instead of them one of his genin decided that he didn't like the way that they were looking at him. He couldn't have been out of the Iwa academy for even a year yet he flashed his headband around like he was a bloody hero. He wasn't that much to look at either with messy black hair and a plump face that reminded them of choji, he was dressed similar to his jounin with a kimono that had the right sleeve missing and black trousers that were tied around his ankles with bandages**. **The only things of interest about him were the twin katanas on his back, their blades darker than black with and elaborate red design woven into the handles, with a simple square cross guard.

Naruto and Sasuke ignored him as best they could when he started yelling at them and tried taunting them, saying how they were jealous that they would never be a great ninja like him and that he was the son of lord such and such and that babies like them should be curled up in their mother's arms not out in the big world with 'real' ninja. For Naruto the jab about his mother didn't matter too much he'd had dealt with a lot worse being said about him but for Sasuke it was unbearable, the memory of his brother murdering his parents was still a fresh wound in his mind, and before Naruto could stop him Sasuke had charged the genin, the enraged Uchiha actually managed to score a few good hits before the genin could retaliate.

It only took a few minutes; the Iwa bastard was relentless as he started systematically beating Sasuke to a pulp. Naruto would have stayed out of it, after all Sasuke had started it, but after seeing how badly his only friend was being beaten he had jumped in to help, only to receive an even more intense beating than the one that Sasuke was getting.

It didn't take long for them to drop to the floor having had the first real 'fight', if it could be called that, of their lives. The Iwa genin looked like he wanted to continue but his jounin put an end to it them moment Naruto and Sasuke hit the dirt, giving his student a small lecture about control, even the genin's other teammate were giving him a look that said they agreed with their sensei but he just shrugged it off saying it was Sasuke's fault for attacking him first.

Even after all that he had just put them through though Naruto and Sasuke both found the willpower to stand back up, much to everyone's amazement, their glares made the jounin sweat a little as he stared into their eyes, both with a hint of blood red creeping into their irises. He must have thought that they were both Uchiha at that point and was worried about an older and possibly more experience Uchiha that could have been an actual ninja showing up to defend them, because he finished the deal quickly sealing the cargo into some scrolls and took his team back over the border but not before the arrogant genin called back to them. '_If you brats want another ass kicking then be back here in a month, I'll be happy to oblige.'_

Naruto and Sasuke limped all the way back from the border, not saying a word to anyone and silencing all offers of help with a glare that even the third in his prime couldn't compete with.

True to his word, the Iwa squad came back in a month to trade for another load of supplies; they were surprised to see Sasuke there this time obviously thinking that their teammate's vicious beating of the boy would have kept him away. Their jounin looked like he was going to interfere before his student beat the crap out of the kid again until Naruto flew past them, ripping off the genin's headband that was tied around his neck and rushing over to stand next to Sasuke.

In the month that separated their two meetings Naruto and Sasuke had put themselves through a tortuous training regime, their humiliating loss to the arrogant genin had been a massive motivation for them. They both understood that if they couldn't even beat a genin together then they would never been able to achieve their goals.

A lot changed in that month, at some point over the past Naruto became physically strong enough to be able to handle a constant stream of the Kyuubi's chakra, which lead to him being able to induce the initial state permanently, in the five years following this event the Kyuubi was steadily increasing the amount of chakra that was being given to Naruto on a daily basis because as his body matured and strengthened through training the amount of power he could handle from the Kyuubi increased as well, so as he grew and matured his strength increased in leaps and bounds, not only becoming stronger through training but the Kyuubi's chakra as well. It was during this month that Naruto confessed the truth to Sasuke about the Kyuubi and had never been happier when Sasuke said that he didn't care, he was so happy that he almost crushed his friend in a hug saying that he was the best friend anyone could have.

Naruto wasn't the only one that changed either, during one of their sparring sessions Sasuke was finally able to unlock his sharingan, it was at its first stage and still had a long way to go before it was fully mature but the results of even an immature sharingan were obvious, Sasuke became a lot faster and smoother in his movements and Naruto was amazed at how much he improved with just the first level of the sharingan and said he couldn't wait to see what the full sharingan was able to do.

It was obvious to the jounin that Naruto and Sasuke had changed, it was hard not to notice that Naruto had changed, his hair was wild and a lot spikier than before, and his possession marks were now impossible to miss and his eyes were blood red with slit pupils. It was obvious to everyone apart from one arrogant genin who was almost blind with rage, demanding that the brats give him his headband back, to which Naruto replied, that if he was such a great ninja he wouldn't have lost it in the first place. Sasuke laughed by Naruto's side as the genin turned a shade of red they had never seen, before he made a deal, if the genin won he got his headband back and if they won they got his swords, a simple innocent deal that was accepted almost immediately apparently the Iwa genin was confident in his skills and was just waiting for a chance to put Naruto and Sasuke in their place again.

He never got his chance though, the pair rushed him almost immediately, covering the distance between them in a few seconds and delivered a punch hard enough to break a couple of his ribs, after that they leapt into the air to give a roundhouse each to the face, one to his forehead and one into his nose, the collective kicks sent him flying backwards with blood rushing from a clearly broken and disfigured nose. They ended the match in two moves, the genin couldn't even get back up and so Naruto and Sasuke went to proudly claim their prizes and left without a word. Soon after they left the caravan and became the youngest mercenaries for hire ever and dedicated themselves to focusing solely on their training from that point onwards.

"Yeah, I still have his headband you know." Naruto chuckled, slowly standing up and walking in the house, a few minutes later he emerged with a battered bit of metal, a pair of towels and a first aid kit for Sasuke. "Wonder if he remembers us after the ass kicking we gave him." Naruto said wiping most of the blood of his body with a towel while Sasuke started to clean and bandage some of the deeper cuts Naruto had given him with his sword. "You know I could..."

"Hell no!" Sasuke interrupted immediately, shuddering slightly as he looked at Naruto. "That hurts like hell, I'd rather be covered in bandages than have that happen again."

"Alright just thought I'd suggest it." Naruto said picking up his own headband which he had set down on top of his black shirt, since they were sparing with their swords they had left their shirts off otherwise they would have been cut to ribbons. He silently compared the two headbands, the Iwa headband had been scratched and lost its shine over the years but the symbol was still clear as day on it, while Naruto's headband was brand new it was so polished that he could see his reflection in it and he wasn't surprised to see himself scowling at it in disgust. "I can't believe that I've labelled myself as a part of this village." Naruto sighed, setting the headband down again.

"It's just a stepping stone." Sasuke assured him, looking up form cleaning a cut when there was a knock on the front door, followed almost instantly by. "I'm not here." Naruto looked at him with a raised eyebrow before he understood.

"I take it you're fan group had their first gathering this morning." Naruto said already moving towards the door, he really didn't mind, if it was a couple of people looking for Sasuke then he would be more than happy to scare them away. A look at his bloodied shirtless form with a burst of killing intent ought to make any fan girls run away screaming but to his immense surprise when he opened the door he was greeted with a shockingly bright head of pink hair. Naruto could only stare at the person's hair for a moment wondering why anyone would dye their hair bright pink before he noticed the Konoha headband tied into her hair, remembering why he had come to the door in the first place Naruto fixed a glare to the kunoichi standing in front of him. "What do you want?" Naruto didn't miss the girl paling considerably when she took in his bloody form and smirked lightly, thinking he could get rid of her with a few words.

"Are you Sasuke?" She asked softly daring to meet Naruto's eyes, who had to resist the urge to roll them at the girl, '_a fan who doesn't even know what her crush looked like, god she's useless.' _Naruto thought sighing at the girl.

"No I'm not, now who are you?" Naruto demanded he was starting to lose patience with her, if she was a fan he wanted her to go away but if she wasn't then he wanted to know why she was here and then send her away and he'd prefer to do both quickly but the girl was taking forever to say anything. _'Maybe answering the door all bloody was a bit much.'_ Naruto conceded to himself but it was too late now.

"I'm Sakura Haruno." Naruto's eyes widened as he registered the name, this was their other teammate? This girl with ridiculously pink hair that looked like it went half way down her back was meant to be able to fight beside him and Sasuke; she looked like she spent more time looking in the mirror than she did actually training. Her red dress and tight green shorts looked like it was more of a fashion statement than actually being practical. "Iruka sensei told me that Sasuke was one of my teammates and that I could find him here. If you're not Sasuke then who...?"

"Naruto Uzumaki, your other teammate." Naruto said quickly, frowning lightly when Sakura held out a hand with a bright smile, saying it was nice to meet him. Naruto shook her hand after staring at it for a moment not quite understanding the gesture; it always seemed like a wasted effort, why did you have to touch someone for a simple greeting. After looking Sakura up and down for a minute Naruto stepped back inside the house. "Come on Sasuke's out back."

'_Maybe she won't be too bad'_ Naruto thought, walking back out into the garden to find Sasuke trying desperately to bandage a shallow slash across his back. When the Uchiha looked up and noticed the bright pink following Naruto he shot Naruto a glare that screamed **TRAITOR!** Suppressing a chuckle Naruto pointed to Sakura.

"Sasuke meet Sakura Haruno. Sakura this is Sasuke Uchiha." Sasuke stopped glaring at Naruto when he heard who the pink haired girl was; Naruto knew that he was thinking the exact same thing that he thought when he first saw Sakura; they shared a look that was the equivalent of a shrug, nothing that they could do about it now.

"Do...do you need some help?" Sakura asked after an awkward silence, looking at the now forgotten bandages, Naruto could clearly see a faint blush on her face as she looked at Sasuke. _'GOD DAMN IT!'_

"**What's wrong?" **The Kyuubi asked jolting awake inside Naruto's mind as the blond screamed profanities. **"Who's the girl and is her hair...pink, is that natural?" **

'_To hell with that. Look at her I was right she's going to be a fan girl! And besides no one's hair is pink naturally she must have dyed it.' _Naruto growled, radiating such a killing intent that Sasuke almost yelped when he looked at the glare Naruto was giving him. '_I mean look at her, she's blushing all over him.'_ Naruto seethed watching as Sakura bandaged Sasuke's back and the rest of his injuries with a practiced ease.

"**She's a thirteen year old girl touching an attractive boy what do you expect, it doesn't mean that she is going to be a fan girl kit, calm down." **Kyu sighed; lying back down to sleep, annoyed that the blond had woken him up for something so trivial. Naruto was about to dive into a string of insults directed at the fox for being blind and lazy but did a double take.

'_Di...Did you just call Sasuke attractive?'_ Naruto was sure that he had his jaw hanging wide open but he didn't care right now.

"**Wha...what no, I... I only meant that she thinks he's attractive." **Listening to the mighty Kyuubi stumble over his words was probably one of the funniest things that Naruto had ever heard in his life, he couldn't resist the urge to tease the great demon a little bit more.

'_If there's something you want to tell me Kyu you know I'll always listen right, you can trust me." _Naruto barely managed to suppress his laugh as the Kyuubi growled in embarrassment. **"Next time you ask for my power Kit, I'm just going to let you die." ** He mumbled, quickly withdrawing from Naruto's mind. _'Love you too big guy.'_

"Do either of you want tea or something?" Naruto asked an unusually bright smile on his face, oblivious to his usual behaviour Sakura smiled and said yes politely, Sasuke however was very confused by this sudden emotional 180, thinking that he had imagined Naruto's glare that promised his painful death at the blonds hands a moment ago. The Uchiha could only nod slowly as he stared at Naruto who looked like he was close to skipping inside the house.

It didn't take very long for Naruto to make the tea and by the time he brought the three steaming cups back outside Sakura had finished patching Sasuke up, said Uchiha was now gently washing the remaining blood of his body.

The trio decided to sit on the meander that led around the entire house with their tea, a comfortable silence surrounding them as they sipped at their tea before Naruto asked the inevitable question.

"So Sakura, we know that you have close to perfect chakra control but aside from that we don't know anything about you." Naruto said looking at her. "What can you do?" Sakura shifted slightly as both Naruto and Sasuke stared at her, waiting for an answer.

"I got 100% in every test that I ever took at the academy and I graduated at the top of the academy." She said proudly, looking between the two boys to gauge their reactions, Sasuke had a little more tact then Naruto, able to hide his surprise rather than just letting his jaw hang open again.

"Really?" Naruto asked, starting to re think his assessment of Sakura, even if academy levels were ridiculously low the fact that Sakura aced them meant she was at least worthy of a chance, Naruto couldn't wait until he met the other teams though he wanted to crush them all to prove who the best was.

"Yep." Sakura beamed, smiling proudly at Naruto for a moment before looking at Sasuke again, the Uchiha was giving her a small smile and a simple nod. "I can also use gen jutsu, although I'm only at beginner level and I have a few nin jutsu as well." Sasuke scowled when he heard gen jutsu and Naruto promptly laughed.

"Well at least you'll be able to use gen jutsu better than him." Naruto laughed, pointing at Sasuke who snapped to his feet and threw the empty tea cup and Naruto's head.

"Screw you Naruto! It's not my fault that casting a gen jutsu on you is practically impossible!" Sasuke screamed. Sakura, sat in the middle of the two, smiled at their playful antics before asking.

"Why can't you cast a gen jutsu on Naruto?" Sasuke looked like he was about to answer her but suddenly realised that the true reason that he couldn't put Naruto under a gen jutsu was because of the Kyuubi's chakra constantly flowing through him, to cast a gen jutsu on Naruto you would have to catch and control both the Kyuubi's chakra and Naruto's at the same instant, and trying to hold the Kyuubi's chakra in check was like trying to look at the sun, you could do it for a few moments if you had the will but not for very long.

"I have a Kekkei Genkai that splits my Chakra into two parts, so I have two different kinds of chakra, if you want to cast a gen jutsu on me you have to take control of both at the exact same time or one flow will break the gen jutsu that you have put on the other." Naruto explained, he realised a while ago that he would have to come up with a reason for why he couldn't be put under a gen jutsu and also anyone who could sense chakra or could see it, like someone with the sharingan or byakugan would wonder why he seemed to have two types of chakra flowing through him, the Kyuubi's and his own, lying about a Kekkei Genkai seemed the best way to solve both problems, after all some clans had freakish Kekkei Genkai so it wasn't hard to imagine a Kekkei Genkai that split his chakra. Sakura listened with rapt attention while Naruto spoke, she seemed to be analysing every word that he said and storing it away.

"But taking control of two chakra flows shouldn't be too difficult with a bit of practice, especially with the sharingan, should it?" She asked Sasuke, the Uchiha knew that he was on the spot here and he hadn't thought of a reason, he was still trying to understand all the implications of Naruto's lie.

"Erm well...you see." Sasuke stuttered for a moment before an idea came to him. "Naruto's chakra flows are really closely intertwined and one greatly overshadows the other, so it's hard to detect both chakra flows to begin with but then even if you can separate them one chakra is... is." Sasuke bit his lip and looked at Naruto; he really didn't know how to explain it.

"It's immense and it's almost like it has a will of its own so it's incredibly hard to control for even a moment, let alone when you're trying to control my other chakra flow as well." Naruto finished. Sakura nodded for a moment before looking at Naruto seriously.

"Can I try?" She asked her hands twitching slightly in anticipation. Naruto laughed at her eagerness and just nodded watching as she ran through a small series of hand seals with surprising quickness. After a moment she frowned and ran through the seals again...and again...and again. Sighing she stopped after her fourth try.

"**She's not bad, her illusion is a bit basic but her control and application were very efficient."** Kyuubi commented opening one eye to stare at Sakura, Naruto couldn't help but be impressed now, if even the Kyuubi was complimenting her. 

"Welcome to the team." Naruto declared, completely forgetting about the way he thought about her before. Sasuke shook his head at his best friend's antics and simple welcomed Sakura as well. The three of them talked for a while after that quickly getting to know each other a bit better until Sakura got up, saying she had to get home.

"We have to meet our sensei tomorrow, wonder what they'll be like." Sakura said glancing up at the stars.

"Yeah the infamous 'babysitter'." Naruto growled. Sakura gave him a look before turning to Sasuke, who could only shrug. "What they are, none of them are actually useful all they do is watch and write reports, aka a glorified babysitter."

"Better if you don't ask." Sasuke said leading Sakura to the door Naruto offered to walk her home and made a shadow clone to show off his new jutsu but Sakura just giggled at him and said she would be fine. After they said their goodbyes the boys realised just how worn out they were and after saying a quick good night to each other they practically passed out on their beds exhausted from their training, Naruto noted that he was still covered in dry blood but choose the ignore that fact as he was too tired to do anything about it.

"You called for me lord hokage?" A masked ANBU said, appearing in the hokage's office kneeling before the old man's desk. Hiruzen felt his eye twitch as he looked over the ANBU.

"That was three hours ago, where have you been?" The old man demanded, putting down the papers in his hand and pulling out a new set from a draw in his desk.

"Well you see a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long way around." The ANBU lamely lied, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"It doesn't really matter, but as of right now you are no longer an ANBU agent, starting tomorrow you will be assigned a genin squad."

"Who?"

"Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha... and Naruto Uzumaki."

**Authors note: ok honest opinion anyone please, Sakura is very smart, only Shikamaru is smarter than her out of the original Konoha twelve so if she wasn't drooling over Sasuke for six years and actually took training seriously then I think that she would have graduated at the top of the academy what do you think? **

**And also I'm not entirely sure how a gen jutsu works, I always thought of it as the opponent taking control of the chakra flowing to your brain to fake sensations, i.e. sight, smell, hearing, pain that kind of thing, if I'm wrong please someone tell me so I can correct it. **

**As Review please **


	6. Chapter 6: Kakashi

**HELLO PEOPLE! Despite popular belief I am neither dead nor have I given up writing these chapters, I've just had a lot of difficulty with this chapter for some reason, don't know why to be honest but anyway I'm pleased to publish Chapter 6 :Kakashi. **

**TigrezzTail: I don't think that the first fangirl interaction was that bad, Naruto's deminer kind of keeps the general populace away and Ino and Sakura are practically the only ninja fangirls that he has. And not to give too much away but the chunin exams do host ninja from multiple country's ;)**

**Kaneri: Yep that was hesitation but it was only because the third wasn't sure at how Kakashi would react. **

**KitElizaKing: I hope their meeting of Kakashi lived up to your expectations and I agree a smart capable Sakura with a crush on Sasuke is fine just not pure fangirlism. Funny that you mentioned the different forms of betrayal. **

**XxXLexxibabeXxX: Haha well the next chapter will be the whole test so you can see how Naruto fares against Kakashi. **

**Kiki2222: Sorry to crush your hope here mate but Naruto and Sasuke shall not be getting together, they are brothers. **

**Frecklefreak: First thank you for saying that this story is epic, my ego likes this very much. Second yeah I thought if their friendship developed from a young age that it would feel less forced, as for Sasuke being moody I would agree with you but Sasuke has spent six years with Naruto, he is bound to rub off on him. Again I agree that they mellow out quickly with Sakura but she deserves a chance was the feeling I was going for. Also sorry for the late update. **

**Enjoy and please leave a review **

"Great, we're back here." Naruto growled when he and Sasuke arrived at the academy, today was the day that they met their 'babysitter' and Naruto had been grumbling all morning, mumbling all the way here that he didn't need a babysitter to do stupid missions, for a stupid village.

"We won't be here for long." Sasuke sighed trying his best to ignore the whispers that followed him as he walked into the academy, Naruto knew they were getting on his nerves and usually would have done something about it, after all no one pissed off his friend and got off without him leaving an impression, but sadly Naruto was focusing all his will power on keeping his emotions in check clutching tightly at a marble sphere in his pocket to try and calm himself.

The academy just brought up too many painful memories for him to ignore, he almost lost control when he was here for the graduation exam and he couldn't let that happen again, if he completely lost control then he would become a berserk monster rampaging around the village which he had nothing against personally but if he was going to destroy the hidden leaf then he would do it with his own hands not under the influence of the Kyuubi's chakra.

"**Sorry kit, there's nothing that I can do about my chakra intensifying your emotions, the best I can do is try and suppress the more painful memories." ** The Kyuubi apologised, focusing just as intently as Naruto to try and keep the blond under control, unfortunately there wasn't much that he could do aside from slowing the flood of painful memories and trying to keep Naruto calm by talking to him.

Despite Sasuke's obvious discomfort at the whispers and looks he was receiving while the pair walked down the academy halls Sasuke looked at Naruto in concern, he hadn't forgotten that Naruto had almost lost control the last time that they were here and he knew that the blond must have been exercising some god like level of self-control to keep a straight face, he wanted to do something, say something to help his friend but he knew it wouldn't help, nothing he could say or do here would make this any easier for the blond.

"Naruto! Sasuke!" Sasuke whipped around when he heard their pink haired teammate calling them, Sakura came jogging up to them with a happy smile on her face. "Hi! You two walked past the room that we're meant to be in." Sasuke paled considerable when he looked to where she was pointing, he remembered that room quite clearly and if he remembered it then...

"Naruto?" The blond was staring at the room with a combination of horror, pain and pure terror in his eyes that overall gave him a look that scared the hell out of Sasuke and he was sure he heard a clear crack come from Naruto's pocket when he looked at the room. Sasuke tried and failed several times to say something, he knew what he should say, 'let's get out of here our sensei can come to us, we don't need to be here,' or 'Sakura can bring them to us we don't need to be here.' But that look stopped Sasuke dead in his tracks; he had only ever seen his best friend with that look once before and to think that staring at that one room made Naruto feel like this was both terrifying to him and infuriating.

"Why don't we go up to the roof Naruto, I'm sure we don't need to go in there if we let them know where we're going." Sakura offered suddenly, Sasuke forgot that she was still there and silently thanked Kami that she was so smart, any other person would have probably noticed Naruto's face and attempt to 'encourage' him to go into the room but as Sakura proved last night she was a very fast learner.

Naruto nodded weakly, Sasuke was surprised he was even registering what they were saying at this point but Naruto let Sakura take one of his hands in both of hers and gently lead him down the hall way, away from the class room. Before they could get very far a masked jōnin with gravity defying silver hair stepped out in front of them blocking their path, he gave Sasuke and Sakura a one eyed smile as his headband was resting over his left eye.

"That won't be necessary Sakura; I'm your squad leader." The one eyed man gave Naruto a concerned look before looking to Sasuke, his gaze asking the obvious question. Sasuke looked between the jōnin and Naruto, who seemed determined to stare a hole through the floor.

"Naruto needed some air so we were going up to the roof." Sasuke realised that that wasn't really the answer that the jōnin wanted but it seemed to satisfy him for the time being.

"Alright could you go and make sure that no one is up there and Sakura could you go let Iruka know that I'm here, please." Sasuke looked up from Naruto with a glare and took a step closer to him, even Sakura moved closer; the pink haired kunoichi was still holding Naruto's hand which was gripping hers almost painfully now. Their squad leader gave them another eye smile and couldn't help but be impressed, Naruto and Sasuke were total strangers to Sakura and while it wasn't a shock that the Uchiha was acting this way considering how long they had been together it was comforting to see Sakura slightly protective of her teammate. "Don't worry we'll be there in a moment." The jōnin urged, Sasuke cast one look to Sakura and reluctantly strode down the hall and up the stairs leading to the roof. Sakura slowly released her grip from Naruto's hands and practically ran back to the class room to inform Iruka of their sensei's arrival.

Getting down onto one knee the jōnin leaned down so he could look up at Naruto, who just stared blankly at the man for a moment before he took his headband off revealing his scarred left eye.

"Hey Naruto do you remember me?"

"Ka...Ka...shi?" Naruto whispered lifting his head to look at the silver haired ninja completely. "You... you're?" Kakashi chuckled as the blond struggled to put the pieces together in his current frame of mind.

"Yep I'm your sensei from now on." Kakashi said giving Naruto his signature eye smile, before patting the blonds shoulder, he was relieved when Naruto didn't flinch or shy away from him. "It's been a while hasn't it? You are remembering to eat your breakfast aren't you?" Naruto could only nod dumbly before Kakashi ruffled his hair making Naruto scowl at the man.

"Come on Sasuke is waiting for..."

"WHAT HE'S HERE EARLY?!" Iruka's undeniable scream of shock echoed down the hallway. Kakashi slowly stood up and put his headband back on when Iruka stook his head out of his classroom door to stare at Kakashi, the teacher rubbed his eyes just to make sure he wasn't seeing things, he stayed that way for a moment before snapping out of his trance. "Senpai, you're early." Iruka glanced back in his classroom obviously looking at the clock. "Very early in fact."

Kakashi was about to reply when Sakura came out of the class room, squeezing past Iruka to stand by Naruto again, who this time actually looked up at her and smiled the look in his eyes from before gone. As if just noticing the blond boy stood next to his comrade, Iruka openly glared at the boy causing Naruto to flinch and made him bump into Kakashi, the fear in Naruto's eyes at that moment when he mumbled a small apology combined with the satisfied smirk that Iruka had when he moved back into his classroom made Kakashi lose all respect for the man.

At any other time, in any other place, Naruto would have glared back at the teacher and released enough killing intent in his direction to floor a Kage but in this place right now; Naruto was like a dog that had been constantly whipped by its master, a broken shell of who he actually was.

"Come on then." Kakashi said cheerily throwing an arm around Naruto's shoulders and leading him to the roof, Sakura not far behind was obviously worried about Naruto from the way she kept looking at the blonde.

When they reached the roof they found Sasuke pacing back and forth clearly irritated at having been sent up here, but when he saw them he stopped and gave Kakashi a critical glare as he looked the jōnin up and down. Kakashi just smiled at the Uchiha's less than discrete observations and ushered Naruto to sit on the steps nearby while he sat on the railing that went around the roofs edge, Sakura and Sasuke both sat down on either side of the blond who smiled and tried to act like nothing was wrong but didn't fool anyone and after an awkward minute of silence Kakashi spoke up.

"Ok then I'm going to be your squad leader from now on but I don't know anything about you, so why don't you introduce yourselves." Kakashi said looking at the three genin in front of him, Sakura and Sasuke gave each other worried glances at the glint in Kakashi's eye but Naruto grinned at their sensei.

"Why don't you tell us about yourself first?" Sakura asked, Kakashi looked like he was about to answer when Naruto interrupted.

"His name is Kakashi Hatake, things he likes and things he hates, he doesn't want to tell us, his dreams for the future, he hasn't really thought about it and his hobbies and he has many hobbies. Right... Sensei?" Naruto said the last word so quietly that Kakashi barely heard it but the one eyed ninja gave the kindest smile he could muster.

"Yep got it in one Naruto." Sakura and Sasuke sweat dropped, all that really told them was his name and Sasuke was confused by the smile pulling on Naruto's lips, it was small but it was defiantly there, who was this ninja? Naruto must have known him before they left six years ago but he had never mentioned anyone to Sasuke before, the only people he knew who treated him with any kind of affection were the third, the head of the Inuzuka clan and...Itachi.

Sasuke felt the familiar hate and pain well up in his chest when he thought of his brother but didn't have time to think on it when Sakura spoke up, Kakashi must have asked her to introduce herself.

"My name is Sakura Haruno, things I like are dango, reading books and...My new teammates." Naruto couldn't suppress his small blush when Sakura giggled the last part and even Sasuke allowed himself a smile. "Things I hate are **INO PIG!**" Sakura spat the name out like it was venom with such intensity that even Kakashi was taken back but the kind smile that replaced her sudden glare made them all pale slightly and both boys made firm mental notes that Sakura had a temper.

"Let's see, my dreams for the future are to become an outstanding medical ninja for the hidden leaf village and I also have lots of hobbies." Sakura finished like nothing had happened missing the slightly cautious looks the others were giving her. Kakashi cleared his throat after a second and pointed to Sasuke, who took it as his turn to speak.

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha, I like training, strong opponents to overcome and my teammates, which unfortunately includes this dope." Sasuke grinned when Naruto took a half-hearted swing at his head glad that the blond was closer to normal now that they were on the roof. "Things I hate, having to look after this dope." Sasuke didn't grin when Naruto's swing actually connected this time.

"Enough with the dope crap I'm just as good as you!" Naruto yelled glaring at Sasuke, they held each other's gaze for a moment before grinning like idiots and laughing, Kakashi and Sakura just glanced at each other and shrugged accepting that this was how they were going to be with each other. "Besides no one cares about your hobbies."

"I guess not." Sasuke conceded making Naruto look at him in shock and a little guilt but the Uchiha had a sly smirk on his face. "I mean who would want to hear about the hobby I make of kicking your ass." Naruto grumbled quietly and glared at the Uchiha while he finished. "My dreams of the future are to restore my clan and to kill my brother." Sakura gasped when she heard Sasuke say this, it made sense everyone besides her knew why that was an obvious thing for the last 'loyal' Uchiha so say.

"Why do you want to kill your brother, he's your family isn't he?" She almost demanded before Naruto gave her a look that said shut the hell up.

"His brother is the one who massacred the entire Uchiha clan back when we were still kids." Naruto explained calmly noticing how Sasuke tensed up when he heard Sakura ask if he was family, Naruto might be the proverbial hothead but whenever Sasuke's brother was the topic of conversation he was just as bad if not worse than the blond. "So he wants to kill him to make him pay for it." Kakashi coughed lightly to try and defuse the tense situation that was developing.

"So Naruto why don't you tell us about yourself." Kakashi offered, sighing when Naruto scowled at him. "No I haven't forgotten it's just…Sakura might not know." The masked ninja said in a pathetically defensive way that made Naruto sigh.

"Fine, my name is Naruto Uzumaki, I like are strong opponents to test myself against, I hate weaklings, my hobby is learning new techniques even if I can't perform them." Everyone raised an eyebrow at this even Sasuke who had come to a similar conclusion about Naruto years ago but had never heard his friend outright say it. Naruto would often sit and watch Sasuke train for a few hours rather than train himself and even though Sasuke's style of fighting was based around his ability to perceive and counter his opponents moves thanks to his sharingan he was more than certain that Naruto could teach his style to anyone with the sharingan better than he himself could. "And my dream is to master a certain technique that my father knew."

Kakashi paled considerably when he heard this and suddenly became very conflicted, Naruto had to be talking about the Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God Jutsu) that the fourth Hokage developed, but why did he want to learn it? Naruto was clearly under some kind of influence from the Kyuubi the signs were just too obvious for Kakashi to ignore and if how he reacted to Iruka's presence downstairs was any indication then Naruto still had powerful negative feelings for Konoha's shinobi and probably Konoha itself, so Naruto learning such a devastating s-rank technique made Kakashi worried. On the other hand maybe Kakashi was just overthinking it after all both his parents were dead killed just after he was born and it could be argued that the Hiraishin no Jutsu was Naruto's birth right and that he simply wanted to learn his father's greatest technique as a way of feeling closer to his parents.

"Wow must be a really powerful jutsu if it's your dream to master it." Sakura commented breaking Kakashi out of his dilemma when he saw Naruto grin, _'Maybe I am overthinking it.'_ Kakashi thought when Naruto replied without missing a beat.

"Yep it's called rasengan and it took him three years to develop." The blond announced which made Kakashi relax completely but still the masked ninja had to wonder how Naruto knew about that technique only him and jiraya knew how to use it now and there was no official record of the technique. "And my hobby is making summon contracts." '_And his hobby is making summon contracts what do I have to worry… about?'_ Kakashi did a double take when he registered what Naruto had just said, Sasuke must have noticed because the Uchiha smirked at the masked ninja.

"Naruto did you say summon contracts, as in the animal summons that ninjas use?" Kakashi asked completely taken back when Naruto just grinned at him again while nodding vigorously. "How have you made a hobby out of that, you're only thirteen how did you even find out how to summon anything?" In all honesty he was younger than Naruto when he had learned how to summon his own ninja hounds but they were a part of his family's tradition so he had inherited them AND had someone to teach him Naruto didn't have anyone like that.

"Well we were doing a job for this old guy once but he didn't have any money so he taught us the summoning jutsu as a payment because he could tell that we were ninja or at least training to be ninja." Naruto explained pointing to Sasuke as he continued. "And me and Sasuke made a couple of contracts with different types of summons."

"Yeah but Naruto did most of the talking I think they just let me sign their scrolls because they like him so much." Sasuke chuckled enjoying Naruto's sudden enthusiasm, despite having the Kyuubi's chakra running through him which usually gave Naruto a dark and slightly psychotic personality when he relaxed his guard he was a cheery and bright hearted soul, at least he was now, instinctively Sasuke channelled some chakra down his arm. He obviously felt at ease around Kakashi and didn't consider Sakura much of a threat even if she were to try and hurt him.

"That's not true the hawks like you better than me." Naruto shot back pouting at his friend. "I mean Ameru just kept pecking me whenever I tried to summon him." Sasuke just shrugged casually and refrained from mentioning that the hawk had only done that after Naruto almost burned his wings while using the Kyuubi's chakra. The Kyuubi on the other hand had no such restrictions.

"**That's what you get when you screw around with my chakra Naruto." ** The nine tailed fox growled lazily watching what was happening from within Naruto's mind. Naruto just shrugged with indifference even if the hawks didn't like him very much they had proven that they could put their feelings aside when it came time to fight so it didn't really matter one way or the other who they liked more.

"Anyhow." Kakashi said drawing the genin's attention back to their one eyed sensei. "Before you three officially become a new team you have to pass one more test." There was a mixed reaction to the news as Sasuke looked almost bored, while Naruto scowled muttering under his breath only Sakura pouted and asked why. "Well because any ninja can pass the academy exam but we need to pick the best three teams to become genin. We have to keep up the village image." Kakashi explained eye smiling them all.

"Oh well what's one more test." Naruto grumbled, lying back to stare up at the clouds before a thought popped into his head and his shot back up excitedly. "Wait does that mean that we get to kick the crap out of the other teams to prove who the best is?" The grin spreading across Naruto's face could only be described as fox like as he looked hopefully at his sensei, Sakura looked a little worried about how eager Naruto was to fight the other teams but had to admit that she did like the idea of proving that she was the better than Ino and whoever was on her team. Sasuke tried to keep the smirk off his face at proving to the other teams that they were better.

"Unfortunately not." The obvious disappointment from the group made Kakashi sweat drop, the jounin was more than prepared for Naruto to be bloodthirsty but both Sasuke and Sakura as well, he may be in over his head with this. "The test will be tomorrow morning an hour after dawn at training ground seven." Kakashi said. "Oh and don't eat breakfast or you'll throw up." Naruto and Sasuke both scoffed at the comment making Sakura more than a little nervous, Naruto noticed and couldn't really blame her; to her they must seem like juggernauts especially after she saw them after they were done training yesterday.

"Don't worry Sakura you're part of our team now." Naruto said giving the pink haired ninja a confident smile behind him Sasuke was doing the same.

"**You change your tune pretty quick."** The Kyuubi commented dryly from behind his cage making Naruto smile even wider. Maybe he did come around from thinking that Sakura was a pathetic fan girl a bit fast but the nine tails had given her a compliment yesterday and that was more than enough for Naruto to give her a chance to prove herself, and since she hadn't begun fawning over Sasuke yet she was on the right lines. Coughing loud enough to gain their attention Kakashi moved to stand from the bars that he was sitting on.

"So there's nothing more for you to do here today, I'll meet you all at the training ground tomorrow." Kakashi said. "It was nice meeting you all." And with that the jounin shusined away from the roof top leaving the three genin sat alone on the roof in silence.

"He's weird." Sakura said after a while looking to her other teammates who simply shrugged at her.

"Every ninja has their little quirks." Naruto said rising to his feet and sniffing the air. "Seeing as how he just gave us the day off do you two want to get something to eat?" With nothing else to do the other two genin agreed but not before Sasuke complained about Naruto being a bottomless pit.

"I'm not that bad." Naruto pouted looking at Sakura with the best puppy eyes that he could manage, which considering that they looked like foxes eyes most of the time was quite impressive. Sasuke gave Naruto a blank stare as Sakura asked Naruto to never look at her like that again, it was both extremely cute but at the same time creepy given that the blond had assaulted her with a wave of killing intent just yesterday.

"If you had enough money and time you would cause a famine." Sasuke chuckled shaking his head at his best friend's antics. "And stop torturing Sakura, those eyes are just wr…" Sasuke was interrupted very suddenly by a high pitched girly scream followed closely by said girl grabbing Sasuke in a crushing hug.

"Sasuke it _is_ you, I knew true love would prevail in the end!" Naruto immediately locked his eyes on the new comer as he took in her features, fair skin, platinum blonde hair and green eyes immediately identified her as one of the Yamanaka clan and she was clinging onto Sasuke, one thought barrelled through Naruto's mind…**FANGIRL!**

It the short time it took him to come to this conclusion though the street was filled with a low level killing intent that took Naruto by surprise, Sasuke usually let Naruto radiate the killing intent so it seemed like the Uchiha was the one in control but more than that it seemed different compared to Sasuke's usual aura, his was one that promised a quick and certain death, like an assassination this one however was promising a painful and brutal beat down of epic proportions.

It was when Sasuke looked back over at him just as surprised as Naruto that the blond realised that it wasn't him radiating the killing intent, it was…Sakura?

When Naruto looked to his female teammate he did a double take the calm and peaceful girl from before had suddenly been replaced by a growling and quite clearly furious kunoichi.

"**INO." **Naruto glanced quickly between the two girls before stepping back he knew that he could easily beat both of the kunoichi if it came down to it but something was screaming in his mind not to get in the way of two warring females.

"Forehead." The blond smiled back hugging Sasuke even harder than before. They continued to stare at each other for a few seconds before Sasuke apparently decided that he wanted the hug to end and slipped out of the Yamanaka's grasp letting her fall to the floor when her support was gone. Sakura got this smug smile on her face as she walked past the shocked fangirl and followed after Sasuke, Naruto was going to follow when he saw the rage in Ino's eyes, he wasn't really that shocked given how her supposed 'True Love' had just shrugged her off without even acknowledging her, but what caught his attention was the hand sign that she was making and quite clearly pointing to Sakura.

Naruto's immediate reaction was to just walk away but then he thought about what he had told Sakura before, he told her that she was a part of his team and he meant it but even as he thought about that Naruto found that he had to force himself to act. Naruto grabbed Ino's wrists and yanked her in the air letting his own more potent killer intent flood out with a little of the Kyuubi's chakra mixed in just for kicks the combination easily stopped all traffic in the street both civilian and ninja. The expression on the blondes face was priceless and Naruto couldn't stop the feral grin spreading across his face.

"Stay away from my team." He growled out dropping Ino back on the floor the girl was too shocked to respond as he walked back towards the others, Sasuke gave him a sideways glance obviously confused at why he helped Sakura especially when Sasuke must have been thinking the same thing about their teammate while Sakura just smiled at Naruto.

"Thanks Naruto." Sakura said glaring back at Ino who was still staring at Naruto more than a little shell shocked from their brief encounter with one another. The blond mumbled a quiet 'no problem' as they wandered around looking for a good place to eat. They eventually just settled with some dango and discussed what they thought the test would be about.

"It has to be different from the academy exam otherwise there would be no point in doing it right?" Naruto offered stating the obvious so that it didn't seem like he wasn't helping he preferred to kill his problems not talk about them but he couldn't just go and kill Kakashi-sensei. At the thought of their silver gravity defying haired sensei Naruto smiled he would have to thank the third Hokage at some point, the old man really did know what he was doing.

"**You're not going soft are you kit?" **Supressing a laugh Naruto zoned out of the conversation that Sasuke and Sakura were having to talk with his furry prisoner.

"_No it's just I'm glad that we have Kakashi as our sensei." _Naruto thought thinking back to when the former ANBU had sat next to him for hours just talking to him, even though Naruto wouldn't talk back Kakashi always made the effort. _"He was the only one aside from Itachi and Sasuke that were actually kind to me." _ The nine tails left Naruto to revel in his memories, it wasn't very often that the blond enjoyed the best bits of his past and the fox wasn't about to interrupt that, luckily whether they knew it or not neither did Sasuke or Sakura as they talked.

In the end they had to admit that they had no idea what it could be, they didn't know Kakashi well enough and when they asked Naruto he just shrugged not really caring what the test was, if it was in his way then the sage of the six paths himself was not going to stop him from passing it. So in the end they all walked home slightly disappointed that they hadn't been able to figure anything out.

"So are you going to tell me or am I going to have to ask?" Sasuke asked once they were in the Uchiha compound and well away from anyone that could hear them. Naruto just gave his best friend a goofy grin making the Uchiha sigh. "How do you know Kakashi?"

"Kakashi-sensei." Naruto corrected a little too happily which made him calm down somewhat. "Kami being back in this place is screwing with my head." Naruto growled trying to calm himself down, he was not going to turn into a hyperactive knucklehead. Sasuke just patiently waited for Naruto to gather himself in their six years away from the village they had learned when to say something and when to stay quiet.

"Kakashi-sensei was one of the main ANBU to guard me after the… 'Incident'." Naruto growled kicking at a loose rock as he walked along. "He was actually the one that screwed me up that day." Naruto admitted laughing, it was strange that the person who was kind of responsible for the attack on him that day ended up becoming kind of precious to him. Naruto shook his head to clear the thought and turned to look at Sasuke who was paying rapt attention to him.

"If he hadn't said anything then you and I would never have been friends but not only that he…" Trailing off the blond smiled sadly.

"He what?" Sasuke pushed he had to admit that he was curious about Kakashi now, after all Naruto had never once mentioned their new sensei in their six years and the Uchiha would be lying if he said that it didn't hurt just a little that he was only hearing about this now that they were back in the village.

"The entire time between the incident and when I found you on that pier he just talked to me. He talked about the village, his sensei who happened to be my dad by the way he even offered to teach me a jutsu that he thought I might be able to learn." Naruto grinned and was more than a little shocked when he felt a tear run down his face. "But more than any of that, he was the first person to treat me like a human being."

"Naruto…"

"…..You know, I don't think that I'll mind being here that much."

"Is he always this late?" Sakura asked signing as her stomach grumbled loudly, they had been sitting by the three log posts in training ground seven for hours now and Kakashi had yet to turn up. Naruto shrugged helplessly at his teammate.

"He was never tardy when I knew him." Naruto said more than a little embarrassed that he had dragged Sasuke out of bed early so that they could get down here but of course Naruto didn't like being embarrassed which equalled a beat down of epic proportions was due when their sensei finally arrived, he could understand Iruka's outburst yesterday, Naruto's blood boiled at the thought of the academy teacher but he calmed down instantly when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry I'm not…Kakashi sensei?" Naruto had been expecting Sasuke to be stood behind him he could always tell when Naruto was letting his anger get the better of him and needed a gentle hand or sometimes not so gentle hand to put him back in his place.

"Morning everyone, sorry a black cat crossed my path so I had to take the long way but then an old lady needed help with her shopping." The lie was so bad that it was actually painful and it had all three pre-genin glaring at their sensei with twitching eyes. Naruto scoffed and swatted Kakashi's hand away from his shoulder but couldn't deny that Kakashi had amazing timing.

"This isn't going to happen every day is it?" Naruto asked glancing at the pair of bento's that Kakashi brought along with an alarm clock that he put on one of the posts. "What's with the clock?" Naruto got the creepy feeling that his want to beat down Kakashi was going to be replaced with his beat down.

"It's part of your test." Kakashi smiled much too happy for his own good, Naruto decided as the jounin pulled out two bells. "All you have to do is grab a bell." The three pre genin all looked from Kakashi to the bells then back to Kakashi.

"Did you forget one of them in you obvious haste to get here old man." Naruto joked, but couldn't help being annoyed that Kakashi had made such an obvious mistake and forgotten a bell.

"Nope there are only two bells and two passes available for getting them one of you will be going back to the academy." Scratch that Naruto loved the man, he had nothing against Sakura and given time he might even begin to like her as more than just a comrade but a chance to get her off of this team was an opportunity that he couldn't pass up. "So which one of you will be going back to the academy." Naruto really had to resist the urge to turn and look at Sakura that would just be mean and Naruto might be cruel at a stretch but not mean.

"Let's get this over with." Sasuke said walking up to flank Naruto on his right side while Sakura took his right, '_Why isn't Sasuke trying to ditch Sakura we could just work together and get the bells before she got anywhere near them?' _Naruto thought but kept his gaze facing forwards not wanting to tip anyone off as to what he was thinking.

"**You're being an idiot Naruto." **The blond blinked at that just as Kakashi called 'Start.'

Sakura and Sasuke both jumped off in roughly the same direction but Naruto just stood there facing his jounin sensei with an air of determination. Kakashi fixed his blond student with a serious stare in return, Kakashi had no doubt in his mind that he could and would beat Naruto but he had seen Naruto and Sasuke train the other day and knew that he was a far cry from a fresh out of the academy genin, Naruto wouldn't pull punches, he wouldn't just rush in screaming thinking that he was unbeatable, and he would not underestimate Kakashi.

Naruto was trying to analise Kakashi in return, he figured that his sensei was stronger than him if he didn't pull on any of the Kyuubi's chakra but seeing as he was their sensei wouldn't hit Naruto with his full strength, he guessed that Kakashi would have a dangerous range of nin-jutsu that he could pull from but again wouldn't do anything that he wasn't sure whether Naruto could handle or not, his tai-jutsu would undoubted be better than Naruto's, his style would likely be more dangerous and the jounin had far more experience than him against ninjas, all in all Naruto had no chance of beating his sensei, which only made him all the more determined to fight Kakashi alone, test be damned. Something on his face must have shown how determined he was because Kakashi adopted his fighting stance.

**Next chapter will hopefully be up in a week or so, I won't leave you hanging around like I did before, swear. **

**Please review. **


	7. Chapter 7: Test

**SennenGoroshi: Yeah funny that isn't it hehe **

**Alexzander95: Dude thank you for that I don't think I would have ever spotted that, I need to go back and go over my earlier chapters anyway so I'll be sure to change that as I go, again thanks. **

**Kanrei: Why thank you. **

**Final Syai Lunar Generation: Well I'm glad you came across it if you enjoyed it so much :P yes they are still wearing the same clothes that they came in though I may change them at some point haven't decided yet. **

**ArtsyNinja3: Well they have spent six years together so I hope they act like brothers after all that.**

**TigrezzTail: Yeah the roller coaster of emotions from the last chapter was to try and give you a sense of how messed up Naruto still is, I guess it's like PTS and with the Kyuubi's chakra his emotions can escalate very quickly hence the roller coaster effect. **

**KitElizaKing: I like my Sakura as well and don't worry I plan to have them become a very close knit team. **

The moment Kakashi dropped into his stance Naruto sprang into action, making a cross hand seal he formed a dozen Kage Bunshin no jutsu (Shadow clone jutsu) and charged at Kakashi with all his speed which he was hoping would be far more than Kakashi was expecting. His small hope was destroyed however when Kakashi immediately went into action the moment one of Naruto's clone got into range and dispelled it with a vicious punch to the face, Kakashi then proceeded to dispel the other clones as they all came into range showing just how dangerously precise his tai-jutsu was. One by one the clones were dispelled until there was just one Naruto left standing a few feet away from Kakashi in his own tai-jutsu stance.

In an act of desperation Naruto charged chakra through his legs and leapt at Kakashi in an attempt to simply outlast the jounin in a prolonged spar but when Naruto took a kick that he barely saw coming to the chest he realised just how much of an idiot he was being. The kick flipping him over on to his stomach so he hit the ground hard face first with Kakashi stood just a foot away smiling happily.

"You can't beat me like that Naruto, I think you underestimating me." Kakashi said crouching down to poke the unmoving Uzumaki. "You alright I didn't hurt you did I?" What happened next Kakashi was not expecting 'Naruto' turned to look at him with a very suspicious smile on his face that made Kakashi's danger warning kick in before the blond simply mouthed 'boom' at him.

Knowing what his student had planned Kakashi leapt out of the way just in time to avoid the clone exploding in a small firestorm. _'__Kage bunshin _and _Bunshin Daibakuha (Clone great explosion jutsu)____when did he learn those?' _Kakashi was left to wonder though as two dozen clones emerged from under the ground literally popping up to attack Kakashi some with kunai out and some using hand to hand one clone even had his katana out and Kakashi was forced to duck low in order to avoid being made headless, the speed of these clones was nothing short of amazing. While the speed itself wasn't all that impressive, Kakashi had seen much faster, it was the fact that even after creating so many kage bunshins these clones still looked perfectly healthy and were able to fight at a chunin level speed.

Dodging out of the way of an axe kick that would have given the jounin a very up close and personal introduction with the ground Kakashi got to work dispatching the clones delivering well timed kicks and punches to vulnerable areas that Naruto's tai-jutsu left open. He even grabbed the Katana from that one clone and used it to dispel several of them with one swing, Kakashi was no ken-jutsu master but all ANBU had training and he always took training seriously.

"Where are you?" Kakashi mumbled as he dispelled the last clone, looking around the surrounding trees hoping to catch a trace of him, with all the ambient chakra around after all the kage bunshin Kakashi was having trouble tracking his chakra. Naruto scowled from where he was stood, looking around a thick tree into the clearing to keep an eye on his sensei, he knew that he had no chance of winning but to be so easily outclassed was a real kick for Naruto and he had to say it stung.

"**You need to…"** The Kyuubi began before he was quickly silenced by Naruto.

"Don't kyu I need to do this myself." Naruto said pulling back when Kakashi's eyes passed over his hiding place. _'He isn't going to stay there for long.' _Naruto thought frowning as he tried to come up with a plan of attack. _'He can easily outclass me so I need to trick him, distract him long enough to get a hit, or just completely overwhelm him. Jounin or not there's only so much one ninja can do at once I just need to find out if I can reach Kakashi's limit.'_ Settling on his plan Naruto created two clones before jumping out of the tree line when Kakashi had his back turned but the jounin whipped around fast enough to sock Naruto in the jaw. When the blond just grinned up at Kakashi from his place on the floor Kakashi's senses kicked in again telling him to retreat but he couldn't and to his shock found his hand bound to the Naruto on the floor with ninja wire.

"Got you sensei." Naruto smirked and before Kakashi could point out that Naruto was on the floor the colour drained from his face when he heard a pair of Naruto's chorus.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire style: Great Fire ball jutsu)"

"Fūton: Daitoppa (Wind style: Great breakthrough)" 

As the silver haired jounin marvelled at the sheer size of the attack hurtling towards him he was instantly worried about Naruto, the one on the floor had to be the real one because if he was a clone he would have dispelled the moment that Kakashi hit him but the Naruto on the floor simply winked and dispelled in a puff of smoke leaving the ninja wire tied around a kunai embedded in the ground. Kakashi didn't have the time to wonder when Naruto switched himself with a clone and simply jumped out of the way of the great swath of fire advancing towards him. The moment the twin jutsu passed by where Kakashi was it slowed and dissipated but that danger was only replaced when another dozen Naruto leapt out of the forest surrounding Kakashi in a loose circle.

Before the jounin could comment on the blonds timing the Naruto's when into action four threw a mass of shuriken at him before they all started making hand signs ones that Kakashi recognised.

"Shuriken Kage bunshin no jutsu (Shuriken shadow clone jutsu)"

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu."

"Fūton: Daitoppa"

The hand full of shuriken turned into a few thousand that completely blocked off all of Kakashi's escape routes while eight clones used their wind fire combination jutsu.

When the streams of fire collided they created a swirling inferno that started to expand the longer Naruto kept the jutsu up eventually growing to the point where the heat forced the clones that were sustaining the jutsu to dispel but the raging fire ball expanded again until it was wide enough to reach the tree line and tall enough to be seen for miles around.

"Sakura!" Sasuke called grabbing his pink haired team mate from where they were watching the fight and jumping away from the fire ball just in time to avoid the resulting detonation.

(Training ground 10)

"Well done guys you pass, welcome to team ten." Asuma smiled down at the trio. Shikamaru just huffed out a troublesome before turning to look at the clouds in the distance as he did however his eyes widened significantly which caught the entire team by surprise but as they looked off into the distance only to see a massive dome of swirling flames they understood Shikamaru's reaction they stared at it for a second before the resulting explosion sent a wave of wind crashing through their training area several seconds after they saw it detonate.

"Asuma-sensei what was that?" Ino asked more than a little scared after seeing that. Shikamaru just kept staring towards training ground seven trying to figure out what was happening, Chouji looked worried but kept it to himself as he looked to Asuma.

"That's where team seven are having their final test." Asmua smirked knowing exactly who was on that team. "Kakashi's team must be giving him a hard time this year."

(Training ground eight)

"What is that?" Kiba blurted out looking at the fire ball in the distance one by one the rest of his team looked over with their sensei Kurenai narrowing her eyes at the sight. Akumaru barked when the jutsu exploded and being much closer to the training ground than any other team Kurenai shouted at them to grab something when the shockwave tore through their training field.

"What is Kakashi doing?" Kurenai demanded while her team looked in that direction in slight awe even Shino showed some emotion.

"S-sensei w-w-who did that?" Hinata stuttered when Kurenai shook her head the team was even more amazed was I possible that a genin like them had done it?

(Training ground seven, forest)

"Are you two alright?" Naruto asked looking down at his two teammates the shockwave was a lot stronger than he thought it would be and he had rushed to grab Sasuke and Sakura to protect them from the blunt of the blast which in his opinion worked out quite well seeing as how they were both alright Sakura was looking at him with something akin to awe while Sasuke scowled at him.

"That was dangerous you idiot, you couldn't control that combination." Naruto returned his scowl with one of his own.

"It wasn't about control I was trying to overwhelm Kakashi-sensei so I needed to go all out." Naruto defended himself before huffing and dispelling shocking both Sasuke and Sakura who both thought that they were talking to the real Naruto.

"When did he get so good with that?" Sasuke asked himself getting a helpful shrug from Sakura who got back to her feet and proceeded to move back to the main training area to watch the rest of the fight.

(Training ground seven main area)

Naruto was panting slightly when he crawled out of the water, he really hadn't expected that to work anywhere near as well as it did all the grass in the training field was burnt and some of the surrounding trees had leaves missing and slightly burnt trunks but aside from that the field was fine, not even the tree by the wooden logs was affected which seemed strange to Naruto as the epicentre of the blast was closer to there than the actual tree line.

Shrugging Naruto walked out into the field and looked around it was obvious that Kakashi-sensei had escaped underground before the blast hit him because of the hole in the ground but where was he now. Just as he was thinking about it a pair of hands came out of the ground and latched onto Naruto's legs.

"What the…"

"Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu (Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Jutsu)" In a moment Naruto was pulled underground until only his head was above it only to watch Kakashi pop out of the hole that he used to escape and smile at Naruto.

"Got you." He said before his expression turned serious. "That was a dangerous jutsu you used Naruto, what would you have done if it had actually hit or worse yet hurt Sakura or Sasuke?" Naruto huffed in indignation from his space underground.

"As if a highly decorated jounin like you would be hit by something like that and besides I sent a shadow clone to make sure that Sasuke and Sakura were protected from the blast, I'm not just going to let my teammates get hurt." Naruto defended his actions before smirking knowingly. "You really think this could hold me Kaka-sensei?" Kakashi's eye twitched at the nick name but he didn't have time to react on it as a hand of red chakra burst out of the ground trying to grab him.

If Kakashi wasn't surprised before then he defiantly was now, he knew the Kyuubi's chakra when he felt it and this was defiantly the fox's chakra, had Naruto found a way to control him?

"_**So you need my help now do you brat?" **_The Kyuubi said more than a little annoyed by Naruto's outburst for him to be quiet earlier. _**"I have feelings as well kit." **_ Naruto rolled his eyes at the melodramatic fox

'_Okay I'm sorry but you know how I feel about Kakashi and I wanted to prove that I was strong without having to rely on you to back me up.' _Naruto rushed very aware of the fact that he was still stuck in the ground.

"_**What changed?" **_Naruto turned as much as he could to look at Kakashi who was more than a little weary now that Naruto had shown that he could use the Kyuubi's chakra.

'_I think I've already proven that I'm not a defenceless child anymore.'_ Naruto smiled happy that he was able to fight Kakashi even though he was still clearly outmatched. _'Now cough up your chakra, we still have a few tricks up out sleeve.'_ Naruto smirked when he felt the Kyuubi's chakra cloak form around him and literally smashed his way out of the rock prison that he was in.

"Naruto." Kakashi said carefully watching the blonds face and hoping to the hokage that he was still in control, to his delight Naruto smiled at him.

"Don't worry Kaka-sensei, I've got this." Naruto closed his eyes and focused for a second before the cloak faded. Naruto took a deep breath before setting himself into a stance a few metres away from Kakashi. However just as they were about to engage again the alarm clock that Kakashi had set up earlier went off and Sasuke and Sakura came running from the trees to flank Naruto. They all had worried looks on their faces and Naruto cursed under his breath, he hadn't meant to take up all the test time fighting with Kakashi after all it was still a test for Sasuke and Sakura as well.

"_**Don't worry kit I have a feeling that you've all passed anyway, no way your old mans student will fail you."**_ Despite the foxes reassurances Naruto was nervous when Kakashi walked up to them with his hands casually in his pockets. Not only had none of them managed to grab a bell from their sensei but Naruto had acted along and he had a gut feeling that all three of them had missed the point behind this test completely.

"If we fail dobe." Sasuke frowned but didn't exactly sound angry more resigned, Naruto knew he would be annoyed if they failed but wouldn't hold it against him. "I'll kill you." Hmm then again he might be a little more annoyed than the blond though.

"You could have jumped in any time." Naruto pointed out but inside he knew that Sasuke would never have jumped in because Naruto didn't want him to jump in, Naruto obviously had history with Kakashi and neither Sasuke nor Sakura would have jumped in the middle of that fight because it was clearly more than just a fight. "Sorry if we do fail Sakura." The girl shook her head and smiled at Naruto.

"No you're right we could have jumped in at any time if we really wanted to but didn't so that you could fight Kakashi it's our fault if we fail." Sakura said looking determined as Kakashi walked up to them.

"No If I hadn't been selfish them we could have worked together to get the bells and then at least two of us would have passed because of me we've all failed." Naruto sighed resigned to his fate now.

"No dobe you were right, we could have jumped in at any point there but didn't out of respect for your obvious wish to fight Kakashi alone." Sasuke pointed out sighing as he glare at the bells now in the jounin's hands. "If we actually cared about the bells we should have worked as a team from the start." Unbeknownst to the three conflicted genin Kakashi could hear every word that they were saying and smiled to himself, this test was all about teamwork it always was, he still didn't understand how team after team failed this test time and time again was it really that hard to get that you had to work as a team to defeat a jounin really?

"Well….. you all pass." The three genin stared in absolute shock before grinning happily even Sasuke was smirking as Naruto and Sakura turned to high five each other and Naruto didn't even let the fact that he had been willing to turn his back on Sakura dampen his mood. They were a team now and from now on he would defend her, besides she could only go up in his opinion right?

"So why did we actually pass Kaka-sensei." Naruto asked calming down enough to grin at his sensei, feeling extremely satisfied with the way Kakashi's eye twitched ever so slightly at the nick name that he was given.

"Just then, you were all willing to take the blame for one another." Kakashi said eye smiling at them and holding up the bells. "This entire test was about teamwork and even though Naruto split off from you two at the beginning he made sure that you were safe when his combination jutsu went out of control."

"You may not have worked as a team in the conventional sense but you didn't turn your backs on each other and that's good enough for me to pass you. After all shinobi who break the rules are trash." Kakashi pause to let that sink in before smiling genuinely at them. "But those who abandon their friends and comrades are worse than trash."

Just as Kakashi was finishing a team of ANBU burst into the clearing their faces hidden behind their white masks.

"Is everything alright Kakashi-senpai?" The lead member asked quite clearly eyeing Naruto up even through his mask. "We saw an explosion from the village and several other teams reported a small shockwave passing through their areas." Naruto snorted looking back at Sasuke in slight disbelief.

"They think that's a shockwave." The ANBU gave no visible sign of reaction to the obvious taunt but Naruto could sense the killing intent being sent his way and scoffed at it before levelling his own killing intent at the ANBU making sure that his eyes flashed red for good measure at this the ANBU did react quite visibly as well much to the blond amusement. The intense staring match wasn't lost on Sakura or Sasuke who calmly stepped between the two and gave Naruto a sharp look making him back down.

"We're fine just a little training, nothing to worry about." Kakashi answered calmly pulling out an orange book while the ANBU nodded and vanished without another word. "That was unnecessary Naruto." Kakashi said quite seriously making Naruto cringe he didn't like being chastised, especially not by Kakashi.

"Bastard started it." Naruto grumbled before he started walking away. "I'm going to go see the Hokage you coming or not Kaka-sensei?" Kakashi paused long enough to speak quickly to the others before catching up with Naruto still reading his book nonchalantly as they walked along the route back to the village. As they walked Naruto kept stealing glances at Kakashi and biting his lip hoping that the jounin would say something but he just kept walking along calmly avoiding any obstacles in his path as he read that book.

'**What's got you so worked up kit?**' the Kyuubi finally asked feeling Naruto's excitement turn to disappointment.

'He hasn't said anything about our spar, nothing not anything.' Naruto spilled he was hoping that Kakashi would praise him or at least make a comment on how their spar went after all even though it was clear that the jounin was never in any real danger Naruto had to have at least surprised him right. 'I'm able to use one tail of your chakra like its nothing don't I even get a comment for that?' Naruto half demanded beginning to sulk as he made his way to the Hokage tower.

**"Don't worry about it kit...I was impressed, that firestorm was awesome!"**  
>'That was cool did you see how big it got!' Naruto yelled in his mind a happy grin coming across his face as they made it to the Hokage tower despite his disappointment at Kakashi's silence.<p>

The receptionist waved then in almost straight away once she realised who they were and the Sandiame looked up from his paperwork expectantly although he did raise an aged eyebrow at Naruto's presence.

"Report." Was the only thing the elder man said, well ordered, with complete seriousness that made Naruto wonder if he should be here.

"Team seven passed Lord Hokage." Kakashi said simply much the old man's surprise and who could blame him this was the first team that Kakashi had passed, ever.

"And is there anything I should know about?" Here he looked quite pointy at Naruto. When Kakashi looked at Naruto as well the blond shrugged.

"I can use the Kyuubi's chakra." When Hiruzen asked him to explain Naruto shrugged. "If I said that I've got total control of one tail but lose control around three and become an animal at four would that mean anything to you?" The Hokage nodded before thinking for a few moments.

"You are certain you are in no danger of possession." Naruto scowled at the old geezer and almost slipped into a growl but managed to reign himself in.

"The damn seal on me prevents a full possession. I have to willingly open the seal and let the Kyuubi crush my will, which is never going to happen." Naruto asserted firmly making the fox laugh.

** "Oh come on kit I'll only borrow it and I'll give it back before the morning." **Naruto pointedly ignored the fox but could help but wonder if that could actually work before shaking his head and listening to Kakashi.

"Naruto also has two high level jutsu the Kage Bunshin and Bunshin with two low level wind and fire style jutsu that he used with devastating effect." At that the Hokage actually grinned and easier an eyebrow at Naruto.

"That was you?" He asked actually getting a guilty smirk from the blond. "We could see that from here and more than a few shinobi thought that the village was being attacked." Hiruzen chuckled but motioned for Kakashi to continue.

"Given that Naruto was the only one to actually engage me during the time limit that I set I am unaware of Sasuke's skill level." at that point Naruto decided to intervene.

"He's around mine, his tai-jutsu is more efficient almost like yours sensei but a little more brutal. He has at least a dozen jutsu to call on from all five elements and his sharingan is two tommed but must be close to fully maturing soon." Kakashi thought for a moment before suming them up.

"I'd say top level genin to lower level chunin, and close to midrange specialists." Naruto nodded at the assessment and it was more than enough to satisfy the Hokage even if Kakashi had failed them he would have found a way to get them into the ninja corps. The last loyal Uchiha and Kyuubi container where far too valuable to just have meandering as civilians not to mention that they might just leave the village again. Hiruzen hated the fact that he could only see Naruto as the Kyuubi's container given who he was but he couldn't afford to act like he knew Naruto, he and Sasuke were both unknowns and he wanted to know why they decided to come back to Konoha now.

"Alright you can go. Missions can begin at your discretion Kakashi." The masked ninja nodded and made to leave the room before turning to look at Naruto who hadn't moved.  
>"I'll be out in a moment kaka-sensei." Kakashi's visible eye twitched when the Hokage chuckled and left the room.<p>

"Was there something else Naruto?" The blond looked decisively uncomfortable as he looked at the old man.

"I wanted to thank you." Naruto said at length it felt like he was chewing glass saying this to the arrogant bastard but Naruto felt obliged. "For assigning Kakashi as our sensei." There was a tense silence for a few moments where Hiruzen was absolutely astounded by what he just heard before the old man rethought his current position on Naruto. 'Maybe he's not such an unknown.' The Hokage thought smiling gently at Naruto, his words were clearly forced, probably due to pride more than anything but they were sincere.

"You're welcome Naruto; I understand he was a frequent ANBU guard while you were a child?" Naruto laughed and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Yeah I kinda punched him in the face... A dozen or so...times." The silence in the room was tense as Hiruzen simply raised an aged eyebrow at Naruto. "I should probably apologise for that shouldn't I?" He asked making the old man nod before he pulled out a couple of forms.

"I was going to give these to Kakashi later but here." Naruto looked over the form and frowned.

"I thought you already reinstated us as citizens?" Naruto asked looked especially puzzled at why there were three forms.

"These are your official ninja registration forms, along with those you will also have to have a photograph taken for records." Naruto nodded as it was explained the last form was for Sakura, shrugging Naruto asked if there was anything else before leaving, he was actually surprised when he found Kakashi waiting for him, his sensei just eye smiled and walked beside the blond as they left the building.

"You fought well." Kakashi said after a few minutes casually turning a page in his book as he walked ignoring some of the looks that he was getting for reading that smut in public. "You've come a long way from the kid that jumped across the table at me." The jounin gave him an eye smile when Naruto blushed.

"Sorry about that woke up on the wrong side of the bed." Naruto said lamely trying to escape his embarrassment Kakashi chuckled at his and affectionately ruffled his hair.

"I forgave you for that a long time ago Naruto. Besides it seemed like you needed it." Naruto smiled and even let Kakashi ruffle his hair for a moment before pushing his hand away blushing again. "So what have you been up to, it's been a while since we last talked." Kakashi asked walking along once again. Naruto smiled at him and was about to start talking when they stopped at a Ramen stand.

"Sensei what are we doing here?" Naruto asked looking at the smiling jounin.

"I thought I would bring you to your dad's favourite place to eat while we talked." Naruto raised an eyebrow at that how did Kakashi know about Naruto's father that was a double S-class secret to do with village security, when he asked him Kakashi laughed. "Minito was my sensei Naruto, do you really think that I wouldn't know about you? Me, Rin and Obito were looking forward to meeting you. I actually began to think of you like a little brother." Kakashi admitted closing his book to look Naruto in the eye. To say the blond was shocked was an understatement Kakashi had been on his dads team that he didn't know... Wait a minute.  
>'You knew about this didn't you?' Naruto asked his furry tennent.<p>

**"Of course I knew kit, I was sealed inside your mother remember."** the Kyuubi answered cutting off Naruto's next question before he could even ask. **"And I never told you about it because it had to do with your parents. You may have accepted the fact that I killed them but I don't mention it out of respect for you kit I'm not going to start talking about your father's old team."** The fox growled swiftly breaking the connection in frustration, when Naruto found out that the Kyuubi killed his parents he had no idea what to think and just shut down for a little while before he just out of nowhere accepted it and the nine tails had decided to never mention them again for fear of what would happen to Naruto if he did.

"So this was his favourite, ramen?" Naruto asked obviously not believing Kakashi but still sat down next to him an ordered a small bowl of Miso ramen. "How can people like noodles more than meat?" Being subjected to the fox's chakra for years now Naruto had taken on certain animalistic qualities one of which was a love of meat, Kakashi just chuckled nervously and encouraged Naruto to try it.

"Your mom and dad loved ramen and Minito-sensei always brought us here after a mission." Kakashi explained snapping his chopsticks and pulling down his mask to start eating. Naruto just stared at the noodles for a few moments before almost falling out of his chair when Kakashi sighed in pleasure and set his chopsticks back down his bowl cleared completely. "Something wrong?"

Naruto stared at the empty bowl and could have screamed at how casual his sensei was being but just shook his head. 'Must be a gen-jutsu and he's actually still eating.' Naruto thought stealing glances at the jounin while he snapped his own chopsticks and began to eat his own ramen. The moment the noodles touched his lips Naruto's mind exploded the taste was awesome! Finishing his mouth full Naruto turned to grin at Kakashi who was staring expectantly at him.

"Okay so maybe this Ramen isn't so bad." The blond admitted slurping up the rest of his bowl before ordering another larger one. "So what did you want to talk about Kaka-Sensei?" Naruto asked digging into his second bowl. Kakashi looked at him for a moment before going back to his book appearing nonchalant but Naruto had a feeling that he had his sensei's full attention despite appearances.

"So how have you been?" Naruto grinned at the lame question and shrugged his shoulders.

"I've been good, the past years haven't been easy for me or Sasuke but I think that we got a lot out of them." Naruto admired gesturing to the village around them. "A lot more than we would have gotten here that's for sure."

"You really think staying in Konoha would have been that bad?" Kakashi asks sadly, the jounin didn't meet Naruto's gaze when the blond looked at him. Naruto felt a pang of guilt and maybe even a little pity as he looked at his sensei but quickly put them aside. "There must have been some bad times outside the village though, did you two managed alright by yourselves?"

"Some." Naruto admitted gazing off into the distance. There had been more than a few close calls over the years but they had managed to get by even made some friends. "Yahiko."

"What?" Naruto didn't really register that Kakashi was looking at him and pulled out the marble sphere from his pocket. The crack from yesterday was unfortunately clear; Naruto frowned as he rubbed over the latest damage to the once pure green sphere. He stopped when he got to the dark stain covering half the sphere though and just stared at it.

_'We've got to get out of here!'  
>'Where is he!?'<br>'There!'  
>'Sasuke!'<br>'Run!'  
>'Yahiko! YAHIKO!'<br>'Sauske.'_

"-Ruto? Naruto?" Naruto snapped out of his daze and looked up at his sensei blinking a little to clear his eyes as he shoved the sphere back into his pocket.

"Kakashi?"

"Come on there's one more thing that I want to show you." When Kakashi eye smiled at him like nothing was wrong Naruto smiled back weakly hoping that his sensei wouldn't push the issue. "Come on." Kakashi urged paying for their Ramen and swiftly walking away orange book in hand, once again oblivious to the looks that he was getting as he giggled perversely.

"Sensei, do you have to read... That?" Naruto asked rather surprised and very embarrassed by the fact that the man he looked up to was reading that kind of stuff so blatantly. The man only giggled a little harder and winked at Naruto who was now blushing horribly. After several minutes of Naruto trying to hide his head in shame of Kakashi's actions they arrived at a sizeable house.

"And here we are." Kakashi chirped snapping his book shut as he went to open the front door. Naruto started at the place for a minute wondering how Kakashi could afford a place this big on his own before he vaguely remembered the Cyclops saying something about living in his family home, but that was close to six years ago so he could be wrong.

Naruto took his sandals off and inspected the house as he walked in behind Kakashi, looking at the amazing lack of personal items that belonged to Kakashi, or at least Items that were personal to him. There were several family photos but Kakashi was only in one so Naruto assumed that they were his parents and grandparents or something. There were ornate bookshelves with old dusty books that obviously hasn't been touched in decades, there was no extra pair of sandals by the door either and nothing that indicated anybody else lived in this house besides Kakashi. Naruto sat himself down in the living room while Kakashi made tea and came to the same conclusion.

"Kaka-sensei, do you..." Before he could even answer a box was shoved in his lap with a steaming cup of tea sitting atop it. "What's this?" Setting aside the tea Naruto opened the box to find a small pile of pictures with a picture of Kakashi in his youth sitting on the top.

Kakashi calmly nursed his tea as he looked at Naruto sift through the pictures, there weren't nearly as many as he wanted but that didn't matter anymore. Naruto stopped when he came to his old team photo and stared at Minato.

"So was dad a good sensei?" Naruto asked as he kept flipping through the photos stopping to stare at one every so often. There was an old picture of Kakashi's father and Naruto couldn't help but smile at the family resemblance. There were more than a few photos of the old team seven but Naruto was drawn to the one that had his mother in it as well. The only girl of the team was seemingly obsessing over his pregnant mother while the young Uchiha was standing proud next to Minato both were wearing happy smiles on their faces and Minato had his hand on a young Kakashi's shoulder. Even with the mask on his face Kakashi's eyes showed that he was happy which made Naruto smile.

"Your Dad was the best sensei there was Naruto." Kakashi sighed gently taking the picture from the blond. There was a clear pain in his eye as Kakashi stared at the photo, everyone in it aside from himself was long dead and buried, the only mementoes he had before were a guilty conscience and Obito's left eye, but now... "I'm glad that I get to teach his son." Now he had Naruto, a chibi version of his father and he would be damned if he wasn't going to do his absolute best to train him like Minato taught him all those years ago, Sasuke and Sakura too, he would train them all to be the next Sanin. With his newfound determination Kakashi smiled at Naruto and handed him the picture in his hand.

"Here take it; you can't have any of your mom or dad anyway right?" Naruto frowned he didn't really want to take away a picture that Kakashi seemed to cherish but when he sensei practically forced it into his hands Naruto smiled having a picture of his parents would be nice. "Besides I'm sure that the main Uchiha house needs a good picture or two to make the place less depressing, start filling it with happy memories or something." Kakashi said face back in his book with his now empty cup of tea; Naruto wondered how he drank that so fast but didn't bother asking as he was sure that he wouldn't really get an answer from his sensei.

"How do you know where me and Sasuke live?" Naruto asked before he realised that the answer was obvious the Hokage knew and it was probably in their files by now so that meant that Kakashi now knew. "You know what never mind, I want to get back and train some anyway." Naruto said getting up from the couch and stretching out before drinking his tea.

"The others already know but we are going to start doing missions tomorrow." Kakashi said taking the empty cup from Naruto as the blond moved to put his sandals back on. "I'll meet you at training ground seven." Naruto fixed his sensei with a look as he recalled what happened earlier today.

"You're not going to be late like you were this morning are you?"

"No no." Kakashi said waving off his concern as Naruto smiled thanking his sensei and running off towards the Uchiha compound, even if Kakashi had passed them Naruto still wanted to train some, he was able to catch Kakashi off guard but he needed to come up with better strategies. Back in the house Kakashi was smiling beneath his mask. "I'm usually much later."

It took Naruto all of ten minutes to return to the Uchiha compound from Kakashi's and when he found Sasuke and Sakura sparring he had to raise an eyebrow he was fairly sure that Sasuke was going to be training but Sakura as well. Deciding that it really didn't matter Naruto jumped down to join them wondering if now would be a good time to practice some teamwork exercises.


	8. Chapter 8: Konohamaru

**Zera of the Half Moon: I wonder what's going to happen as well ;P**

** Articullustrator: Thank you, im glad that you like the story and I plan to get the next chapter out soon.**

** Final Syai Lunar Generation: Yeah sorry for the time gap between the posts I know it's a pain to have to re-read the other chapters but hopefully you won't have to for this one. Yeah Naruto's not completely addicted to Ramen in this one though thank god. Glad you like my version of Sakura as well. **

** KitElizaKing: Thank you for reviewing again and I enjoy that you enjoy reading it. Yep it annoyed me that Kakashi despite knowing about Naruto never actually tried to build a relationship with him. **

** SennenGoroshi: Yeah Kakashi was kinda a fail at a teacher before that arc but im sure that even Minato had his faults few as they were. Still amazing sensei. **

** TigrezzTail: Yes the Hokage is more glad to have that kind of power back in the village, despite being old and grandfatherly and having a soft spot for Naruto he's still a kage and has to play politics and having a tailed beast back in his village is only a good thing. Yeah ill say again it annoyed me that Kakashi didn't try to built a relationship with his sensei's only son. **

"Sasuke?"

"Hmm."

"You know when we talked about coming back to the village and we had that talk about what we would have to do as Ninja's."

"Hmm."

"I don't think anyone ever mentioned this!" Naruto yelled glaring death at the paper wrapper on the floor before he speared it with a stick and put it in the bag that he was carrying. "D-Rank missions suck ass!"

It had been a little over a week since team seven passed their test to become genin and since then they had been subjected to the living hell known as D-Rank missions something which annoyed the three young ninja to no end and seemed to be a constant source of amusement for their sensei, especially when he told Naruto that he couldn't just use his shadow clones to get the job done quickly. The only plus side was that they could get a couple D-Ranks done every day so the Genin where able to line their pockets a little especially Sakura who didn't have any living costs like Sasuke and Naruto did. Their current mission was to clear all the rubbish out of one of Konoha's parks it didn't sound like much to begin with but then again for some reason no D-Rank was as easy as the objective made it out to be. When they arrived they found the place almost overflowing with trash.

"Language Naruto." Kakashi chastised casually turning a page in his book from his perch up in one of the park trees. All three genin were beginning to wonder just how many of those perverted books their sensei had he was always reading them but never seemed to finish. "I've explained that the village relies on a steady flow of missions in order to…"

"Yeah yeah so that the village can remain strong and wealthy but seriously isn't this a complete waste of our time?" Naruto demanded voicing the thoughts of his teammates as well. While Sasuke did agree with Naruto that this was a waste of time he actually found the D-Ranks to be a nice reprieve from the training that he and Naruto and even sometimes Sakura did every evening. Even after six years it was hard to keep up with Naruto's stamina the blond was like a power plant, give him five minutes and he would be right back up again.

"Every genin has to do D-Ranks Naruto even I had to do them." Kakashi said not really paying attention to the argument any more as Naruto grumbled about how they could get dozens of D-Ranks done every day if he could just use his clones. Closing his book Kakashi sighed at Naruto jumping down from his tree he walked over to his genin they were almost finished here so he would have had to move soon anyway. "How about this instead of doing D-rank missions tomorrow we'll train instead sound good?"

"Yeah but you have to teach me a new jutsu or something to make up for this." Naruto growled tying up the trash bag in his hand and throwing it over to the sizable pile that they had slowly accumulated throughout the day. Kakashi smiled at his charge not telling Naruto that many of the D-rank missions were actually set up by jounin just so the genin would have something to do in the village, there were some honest D-Rank missions like hunting down the famous Tora for the Fire lords wife and painting fences and other such jobs around the village but some like this were totally fake.

"At least we get paid for this Naruto; I'm saving up to buy this amazing kimono for the Founding Festival." Sakura beamed going all dreamy eyed as she thought about it, the pink kimono was made from the finest silks from the Land of Tea just for the festival. Konoha only had a few festivals a year such as the New Year's festival and the celebration of the Kyuubi's 'death' but the most important one was the festival marking the day that Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju signed the peace agreement that founded the village, said festival was only a month away just before the chunin exams if Kakashi wasn't mistaken.

"Sakura you're doing it again." Naruto moaned looking distastefully in the direction of his female teammate, while Naruto had originally been very against having a third teammate especially someone who in his eyes would be no better than a raving fan girl, Sakura was going a long way to prove that she was in fact not as useless as he thought she would be. In the past week she had shown up and trained with both boys almost every day aside from the day after Naruto accidentally broke her arm, luckily it was a very clean break and apparently would be stronger than before, go figure. Anyway the point was that Naruto was no longer inclined to think of her as a total waste of time and space, Sakura had nowhere near the stamina or chakra reserves or the skill level of the two best friends but that could all be put down to bloodlines, difference in upbringings and experience all of which Sakura didn't have on the two. That aside though she was not timid when it came to training and really gave her all. Even so Sakura was a girl and like all girls was drawn to clothes and pretty things which annoyed the blond to no end.

"Oh shut up Naruto it's once a year I'm allowed to look forward to the festival." Sakura huffed harmlessly tossing a ball of paper his way. "Besides you seriously owe me for this." She said waving the arm that was done up in a chakra cast at him. Naruto had no idea that medical ninjustsu and seals could be used in such an ingenious way, the inside of the cast had several healing seals similar in effect to Shōsen Jutsu (Mystical Palm Jutsu) that slowly fed off of the wearers chakra healing them much faster than normal. In fact it made Naruto so interested that he spent an entire day in the Konoha library researching about seal basics, unfortunately he did not get very far, it was quite complicated.

"Shouldn't have blocked." Naruto grumbled but conceded that it had been his fault he would have offered to heal her straight away but wasn't sure if he should tell her about the Kyuubi or not. When he thought about it Naruto came to the decision that he wouldn't tell her no matter what until they had been in an actual combat situation so that he could see what she was really worth after that… well he would see.

Later that very same day when team 7 reported back to Hokage to deliver the news of a mission well done Naruto had to actively contain his desire to lunge across the room and kill the old man when he offered them another D-Rank that could be done quickly before the end of the day.

"No, no way in hell!" Naruto yelled really this was ridiculous he and Sasuke had been dealing with bandits and even some other rouge ninja who thought they were all that for a few years now these _missions_ where an insult, he said as much to the Hokage and intended to say much more until the ninja sat to his side with a scar going over his nose cut him off.

"Show respect to the Hokage brat you should be honoured to even be allowed to wear that headband!" Naruto glared at the chunin feeling his control slipping a bit, he'd heard about Shukaku the ichibi killing random people in Suna and briefly wondered if he could get away with that here. "You should have been locked up the moment you got back to have a demon like you walking around is…" Everyone in the room gasped as a tremendous amount of killing intent flooded out of Naruto, Sakura was outright floored by its intensity and the Hokage's ANBU guard quickly moved to protect him while Naruto took an ominous step towards the offending ninja before him. The sudden use of his chakra abruptly awakened the Kyuubi though and almost immediately he began pulling some of his chakra away from Naruto before the kit could do anything stupid, only problem was that Naruto had a Kage level chakra reserves even without the Kyuubi so he had little effect.

"Naruto." Kakashi warned moving to stop his student but was beaten to it when Sasuke stepped up in front of his best friend a sharingan enhanced glare getting Naruto to scoff but back down none the less to the relief of everyone in the room especially Sakura who at that point was starting to shake in the floor.

"I'm out of here." Naruto declared promptly storming out of the mission office and scaring the wits out of most of the chunin working outside who had been able to feel that killing intent very clearly and knew what it was coming from. "Weaklings, all weaklings." He growled ignoring even the Kyuubi's attempts to calm him down. Sasuke watched his friends retreating back and sighed this was not the best way to end his day.

"Not the worst either." He mumbled looking over at Sakura as Kakashi helped her back to her feet and assured her that everything was alright. Feeling more than a little angry himself Sasuke turned to the offending chunin and spoke very clearly. "You should watch your mouth. Right now he's a loyal ninja, you can't imagine what a demon really looks like." With that said he nodded respectfully to both the Hokage and Kakashi before going after Naruto, the sounds of Saurtobi reprimanding his aid harshly made him frown, the damned fool should be locked up.

Naruto was in a word, pissed. So pissed off that he didn't know what to do with his anger. How dare that piece of trash talk to him like that, who the hell did he think he was his better? That single ridiculous thought made Naruto laugh out loud a little manically drawing more than a few panicked stares his way. Word of his and Sasuke's word had spread like wildfire over the past week, the entire village knew of their Uchiha-samas return, not everybody had pieced together who he had returned with yet though which irked him slightly, he had been approached only once by someone asking about Sasuke but once was enough for him, the sooner they figured out who he was the better, he preferred them to fear him after all why shouldn't they?

The Kyuubi sat back in Naruto's mind watching his jailers train of thought and couldn't help but agree with it all, he normally would have tried to calm the Kit down but he felt that Naruto was perfectly right to be angry, hell he had slaughtered entire villages for less. However while he was in this state he knew the chances of something happening that would adversely affect the boy were just too high to sit back and not do anything.

_**"Kit you need to calm down." **_Not getting an immediate response the nine tails growled loud enough to draw Naruto's attention towards him. The blond was fuming and it was a wonder that he wasn't still radiating killing intent enough to level the civilians and passing ninja as he walked by.

'_Who does that bastard think he is?' _Naruto asked repeating his earlier thought but now had someone to rant at. '_Acting like he was better than me, than ME!' _He growled ranting at his tenant and partner for a good long while before he calmed down enough to actually look around where he was. '_How did I get here?'_ He was currently stood in the Konoha market district dozens of stores and stalls littered the streets getting ready to close because of the late hour. Deciding that buying a new weapon or simply looking at a few and imagined that killing that ignorant chunin in some unique ways might calm him down some more Naruto looked in the windows of a few ninja stores. It was during this little browse that Naruto came to realise how little he and Sasuke had in terms of ninja equipment, there was a perfectly usable supplies stashed around the Uchiha compound but Naruto felt wrong taking from his best friends deceased clan mates. They didn't have smoke bombs or ninja wire either or any ninja tools, hell neither of them even had a hip pouch or holster. Sufficiently distracted by this new problem Naruto quickly forgot his anger and began to think about what would happen if they had to go out on a long mission what would they do for supplies? They couldn't realistically take everything they might need in a pack, and buying new supplies on the road was an unwanted constraint, what if they were being pursued and couldn't stop?

Naruto's answer came to him as he walked past another shop with basic storage scrolls on display, he didn't really understand why some were different prices and didn't get the chance to as he noticed that the store was closed, in fact they were all closed now. Grunting Naruto decided that after training tomorrow he would look around for some decent supplies, or before training maybe considering that Kakashi had lied to him that time he had spoken to him after their bell test, he was in fact always late… by three hours, almost to the dot.

"_**Feeling better?" **_The Kyuubi asked gently knowing that Naruto was just as likely to start fuming again as he was to go back to the Uchiha compound and bed. Naruto just sighed gently which all things considered was a good thing, he nodded grimly forgetting that the fox couldn't actually see him. He hated this village, hell he hated people in general, human beings were disgusting creatures.

"I hate this place Kyu." Naruto muttered as he walked towards the Uchiha compound suddenly feeling very downtrodden, he had tried to ignore it but he really couldn't. At first it was okay, he and Sasuke had a relatively safe place to rest and recuperate, he had met Kakashi again and for that he really was grateful seeing the ex-ANBU again really had been something that Naruto had wanted to do for years. The village didn't seem that bad for a little while there but more and more people were starting to recognise him it was only the ninja populace at the moment and most were just giving him slightly fearful looks and avoided him which he didn't mind, hell he even enjoyed it if he were honest. It was the few like that bastard in the mission office that had nothing but illogical and unabridged hatred and disgust for him. The very few people to ever talk to him like that were few and far in between and the larger share of them were no longer among the living but he couldn't just kill them here, he was powerless to retaliate and he knew that sooner or later the villagers were going to find out and then everything would get worse. He shuddered at the humiliating thought of them thinking that their great Uchiha had somehow _tamed _the demon and gloating about it to him, the scary thought was that one some level that was true, he relied on Sasuke to keep him in check but to have it thrown in his face like that would drive him mad.

Kyuubi sat in his cage thinking about Naruto's predicament while he too agreed with Naruto's opinion of what was likely to happen he couldn't come up with anything to say, they needed to be here or at least in a powerful hidden village, they had discussed and logically gone through the pros and cons of each of the big five, Mist and Rock were out of the question as was Sand in most likelihood, five minutes around his weakling of a little brothers container and Kyuubi would want to have it out, as would Shukaku more than likely. That just left the Leaf and Cloud; of the two the Leaf was infinitely better despite the situation here.

The fox said as much to Naruto but with little enthusiasm, he knew that Naruto knew the reasons for why they were here and he knew that Naruto understood but that didn't make this problem any better. In fact it might have just made it worse, the fact that being here wasn't a choice but a necessity was grinding on even Sasuke's nerves as much as he tried to hide it.

"_**It's not all bad, good food, good view and you can make some friends." **_The fox added hoping to cheer Naruto up somewhat; even the blond admitted that the forest around the Leaf was beautiful in its own way and Naruto smirked as he thought of the Ramen here he could live on the stuff and as he found out it was insanely cheap here in the leaf. As for the friends, he would admit that Sakura was well on her way but he doubted that he would bother wasting his time with anyone else outside of their team unless he was forced.

'_Besides who's going to stick around when they find out I'm a _demon_?"_ Naruto asked with more than a little scorn before he sighed heavily again, why was he getting so depressed about his anyway he shouldn't care about any of this and if the villagers did become a problem then he would just have to quell their hate with fear, he was sure that he could manage that without killing anyone, in fact he might just look forward to it.

Seeing a grinning Naruto return home after supposedly walking off the worst of his anger was not something Sasuke had been expecting and he knew that grin, it screamed of things to come that would no doubt be unpleasant for someone. Sasuke seriously hoped that Naruto wasn't considering killing that chunin from earlier that would be such a pain to deal with. Naruto didn't say a word though he just smirked at his friend and headed straight for bed leaving Sasuke though rally confused how in the world was Naruto happy right now, what had he done? Or maybe a better question was what was he planning to do?

The next morning saw Naruto in a much better mood although the reason for that mood would probably have him sent to an asylum if it were divulged to anyone. His dreams were full of rather horrid and morbid scenarios of death and destruction with him being the sole cause. Sasuke was aware of his good mood and asked some subtle questions but didn't bat and eyelash when Naruto was perfectly honest with him having long become immune to his bloodthirsty friends dreams and habits. They ate breakfast in a companionable silence where they discussed what Kakashi had planned training wise, Sakura had been shown how to tree climb and water walk fairly quickly by both Naruto and Sasuke during their training sessions which she mastered in less than a day to the astonishment of both genin, they didn't mention that it had taken over a week for them to even get the tree climbing down and longer for the water walking. There were advantages to not having monstrous chakra reserves Naruto felt obliged to point out, they discovered that Sakura had an Earth chakra affinity but all three had thought it best if she try and focus on her genjutsu to act as a support that didn't mean that they wanted her to not have any offensive jutsu though and Sasuke happily supplied her with a scroll with a collection of Earth style techniques that they thought might be useful.

"After what happened yesterday I'm sure that he'll come up with something that we have to think about." Sasuke said reading one of the jutsu scrolls that he found as he ate his breakfast he was having trouble with his Fire style techniques and he wasn't sure why, he had both Fire and Lightning affinities so why did the Fire techniques feel so forced, the scroll wasn't helping much either he had to admit. He would be glad to have some one to one with Kakashi if it were possible.

"Yeah." Naruto mumbled around his cereal wondering about what their sensei was going to have them do before he remembered what he had been thinking about yesterday, looking as Sasuke put his scroll aside. "Hey I was thinking..."

"Don't hurt yourself dobe." Sasuke grinned chuckling at the deadpan look on the blonds face.

"I was thinking." Naruto said again ignoring the interruption. "We don't have any ninja equipment, not really anyway the stuff that we brought with us is almost gone, so before the training session we should go and stock up and buy some holsters and stuff." Sasuke stared at the blond glancing around the kitchen area and thinking about the rest of the house. Sasuke really hadn't noticed that they didn't have any of that stuff, it made sense he supposed to have a full stock of ninja tools but neither of them had ever bothered to really use them before but was just because they didn't really know how he wondered.

Grunting a noncommittal answer Naruto smiled taking that as Sasuke speak for yes. Both boys began thinking about what they might want and more importantly what they might need if they were ever sent of a real mission instead of a D-Rank any time soon, surely seven were enough to prove they were…competent at painting fences and picking up trash? That was it next time he saw the Hokage he was asking for a C-Rank at least and if that chunin butted in again Naruto would kill him and demand a B-Rank.

Quickly getting themselves ready both boys admitted to themselves that a few spare pair of clothes would be a good idea as well and Sasuke again wondered why he hadn't thought about this yet, they had been washing the clothes they arrived in, the only clothes they had, every day how had this not occurred to either of them or even Kyuubi for that matter before now? Deciding that it didn't matter now both headed into Konoha heading for the market district. They weren't the only ones out either plenty of shinobi were walking the streets going about their business.

Both Naruto and Sasuke decided that spare clothes were probably a good place to start and choose a random ninja clothing store to look around in. Naruto started by picking up several sleeveless black shinobi shirts that had blood red flames flickering at the bottom of them with collars that went up to cover his neck; he likewise picked up some black shinobi pants and another pair of sandals. He asked the clerk if the Uzumaki clan symbol could be marked on the back and the old woman was more than happy to do it, for an extra fee of course. Looking around the rest of the store Naruto wondered if he should buy some clothes for colder conditions and eventually picked up two pairs of thicker shinobi pants and a large fur lined black coat as well. After amassing a small pile of smallclothes as well Naruto felt he had enough to last on.

Sasuke picked up a half dozen pairs of dark blue shinobi pants with his loose grey high collared shirts that covered his chest and arms up till his elbow. The clerk was more than willing to mark the shirts with the Uchiha clan symbol as well; the Uchiha likewise picked some clothing for colder conditions, choosing some thick blue pants and a dark blue snow coat along with an extra pair of sandals. Leaving the store both boys were heavy with bags until Naruto made a pair of shadow clones to take them back to the compound.

Naruto wanted to go to a weapons store next but the shop that he passed by yesterday with the storage scrolls in the window caught his eye again, Sasuke agreed that having such scrolls would be very useful on long missions and just in general so that they didn't have to carry lots of equipment around all the time. Like yesterday Naruto didn't understand why the scrolls were different prices and when Sasuke asked a shinobi in the store laughed and pointed to each saying that they weren't just empty storage scrolls some already had useful things sealed inside, one for instance had a years' worth of military rations sealed up inside of it while another had tents and the like. Naruto decided that he would just buy a dozen blank ones and go from there. While he was paying for them however Sasuke was drawn to what looked like battle scrolls, these didn't have equipment or food but things like kunai sealed mid-flight so they came shooting out when they were unsealed. Naruto didn't really see the point of such a scroll but Sasuke paid for one along with his own blank scrolls though he bought one of the field ration scrolls as well.

Naruto almost left the store before the ninja who spoke to them earlier asked them if they knew how to draw and operated a storage scroll and was quick to buy a beginners guide to seals when he admitted that no he did not know how to draw or use them.

"Weapons next." Naruto said cheerily looking around for a store where he could expand his arsenal with deadly sharp objects. They finally found a place that looked promising and to their surprise they found a kunoichi only about a year older than them sat behind the counter casually drawing a whetstone over the edge of a battle axe, Naruto grinned nervously at the girl that had her hair done up in buns with short fringe bangs hanging over the top of her Leaf headband. She was wearing a sleeveless pink blouse with green shorts and was currently smiling sweetly at the two ninja that just walked into her shop. Sasuke blinked once as she put the, no doubt heavy, battle axe down on the counter to greet them.

"Hi, I'm tenten." She said looking them over quickly before smiling again. "You two just graduate last week right?" It wasn't really a question but they both nodded as they took in the store, it was huge and a gold mine of weapons. There was every weapon Naruto and Sasuke could ever imagine and more than a few that they couldn't in here.

"Yeah we came to stock up with supplies." Naruto said dumbing wanting to go over to everything and touch and swing it. Sasuke was already looking over various shapes of shuriken and testing their weight. "Although I thought it would be a bit simpler." Naruto admitted seeing another shelf dedicated to Kunai of different size and make.

"Everyone's like that at first." Tenten smiled coming out from behind the counter to help the two newly minted genin, she pointed to the bottom row of kunai and began explaining. "Okay to these are the cheap breed decent balance but a lower range metal more of less meant to be thrown and forgotten. Next row up we have the standard for shinobi, good balance and decent metal work these are the ones you want to have really but again kind of a throw and forget make, nothing special about them. These ones are the ones that you want to use when using a technique with kunai though. They aren't as good strength wise but have a perfect balance to them to help with aiming with precision and the top row are the ones that you generally want to keep in your holsters, balance is a little off but the metal is the top of the range stuff so it won't break or chip if your clashing with an enemy ninja or bandit or something." Tenten helpfully brought out a couple of boxes filled with the second row kunai and a dozen of the top row. She put them to the side as she helped them with the shuriken as well but admitted that unless the shapes were drastically different the balance and strength were roughly the same, each was forged with the same type of metal so it really came down to personal preference and with neither boy being too picky they each ended up with a box of the standard shinobi shuriken. After they paid for their gear Tenten quickly showed them how to draw out a storage seal on their blank scrolls.

"Being able to do this is a basic shinobi skill that almost everyone uses but there are only a handful of people that know anything more than storage seals or explosive tag seals." Tenten said as she carefully drew out the seal array, Naruto watched intensely memorising the design and construction while Sasuke read the guide they had bought looking over every so often. When she was done Tenten helpfully sealed away their boxes of supplies and asked what they needed next.

"Hip pouches and a kunai holsters." Sasuke said experimenting with the storage seal a couple of times with a kunai as a test subject, once satisfied with it Tenten lead them over to the back of the store where they kept their clothing. Thankfully the hip pouches and holster were generic and needed no explanation, Naruto decided to buy two hip pouches though and two holsters with a few rolls of bandages to wrap around where the holsters were and for his ankles. Sasuke only bought the one pouch and holster but likewise bought a few rolls of bandage. Once they were done and had those attached the pair decided to wander around the store and see if anything caught their eye, almost immediately Naruto was drooling over a sword he found.

The single edged blade was just under a metre long and about five inches wide with a two handed hilt wrapped in clothe. There were intricate and ornamental patterned lines across the dark grey blade with a large ring not unlike that of a kunai at the base of the hilt. When Naruto brought it to Tenten he couldn't keep the grin off of his face the thing weighed more than five times that of his katana but it was just what he wanted personally, the katana was a little too delicate for him anyway he wanted something with a bit more force to it. Buying the massive blade cleared him out of almost all of what was left of his money but he didn't care, he would gladly do another month of D-Ranks missions if Kakashi could spare even a few hours helping him get a bit of technique down with this new blade.

"So what about your other sword?" Sasuke asked watching Naruto swing his new weapon around with one hand despite its apparent weight the blond was experimenting with holding it in a reverse grip like he would a kunai. "Unless you're planning on duel wielding that thing with your katana."

"No." Naruto said happy with his purchase, he carefully swung the blade over his shoulder and stuck it to his back with chakra before walking towards the training ground where they would meet Kakashi in another hour or so if he stuck to his being three hours late timing. "I'll give it to Sakura unless you want it." Sasuke thought about it for a moment even looking at the Katana on Naruto's back before shaking his head.

"Having two would just make it harder to use nin-jutsu, give it to Sakura; Kakashi might show us some pointers if we all have swords." Nodding with hopefully agreement Naruto walked a little faster to the point where they were meant to meet Sakura on the way to the training field.

When they finally caught sight of their pink haired teammate they were more than a little confused when they saw that she wasn't actually alone. A boy a few years younger than the genin was stood in front of the kunoichi with a frown on his face. Catching sight of her teammates Sakura waved quickly heading for Naruto.

"Erm Naruto Konohamaru here wants to talk to you." She said giving him a pointed look. "He's the grandson of…"

"Hey whiskers!" Naruto raised an interested eyebrow at the kid who couldn't be any more than…eight? No maybe he was nine come running at him, he was wearing a yellow shirt and grey shorts with a blue scarf wrapped around his neck. He was also wearing a grey helmet with a frowning orange face on the left side and a red circle on the right, the helmet had a hole in the top letting his brown hair stick through as well but Naruto didn't really care about that as the brat pulled out a wooden kunai. "You were the one scaring all those people yesterday weren't you?"

"Erm…" Naruto tried to think back who he scared yesterday and was coming up blank, he didn't go out of his way to scare anyone yesterday that he could remember.

"He means at the Hokage tower, when you wanted to kill that chunin." Sasuke as always helpfully filled in the blanks making a proverbial light bulb go off above Naruto's head.

"Oh that yeah I guess I was, what's your issue with it brat?" Naruto wondered out loud this Konohamaru kid was too much of a runt to be worth getting annoyed with hell if anyone else had pulled a weapon on him, pathetic as that on of not, he would have been pounding their face into a fine mush.

"If I beat you then I'll have the scared villagers and then they'll make me Hokage cas the old gramps doesn't… do, WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING!?" About five words into his little speech Naruto had broken out into hysterical laughter bending over as he couldn't get enough air into his lungs, Sasuke just sighed giving Sakura a look, the girl had the decency to be embarrassed, obviously this wasn't what she thought Konohamaru was going to do. "Stop laughing at me!" He screamed charging at Naruto who without a second thought on the matter shot his leg into the nine year olds stomach before bringing his leg up with Konohamaru still attached to his foot via chakra and threw his over his head.

"It will be a cold day in hell before a runt of a brat like you beats me kid." Naruto laughed managing to get his breathing back under control in time to see Konohamaru shakily push himself off the floor. _'Wow he's getting up already, I didn't really hold back on that kick at all.' _Naruto watched in interest as Konohamaru actually managed to stand up and take a step towards him.

"_**Tough brat." **_Naruto was inclined to agree with his furry tenant, he hadn't kicked the kid anywhere near as hard as he could but still a kick from him could level grown men for days at a time. No longer laughing Naruto strode up to Konohamaru who looked like he had shook off the worst of the pain but was still a little pale and kneed him in the stomach again. This time the boy cried out and looked on the verge of tears but still he managed to stay on his feet only staggering away from Naruto clutching his abused abdomen.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled, running up to stop Naruto before he could beat the kid up any further she felt the need to whack him around the head for being an idiot but resisted as she pulled her blond haired teammate away. "Sorry Konohamaru." With the help of Sasuke Sakura was able to drag Naruto to the training ground before he managed to kill the young boy.

"He's so strong." Konohamaru whispered breathing through clenched teeth as he stared at Naruto's back before promptly passing out with a happy grin on his face.

"Naruto you idiot that was the Hokage's grandson you can't just go and beat him up like that you'll get into serious trouble." Sakura hissed when they finally reached the training grounds, Naruto just shrugged and went to lean against one of the posts in the field. He really couldn't care one way or another besides the runt was attacking him in the first place wasn't he, why was Sakura getting at him about that? "Because his grandfather is the HOKAGE!" She stressed when he asked just that.

"And my old man was the fourth, what does it matter?" He demanded looking at Sakura's shocked face before shrugging again. "Parents, clan, prestige none of that matters in the real world Sakura. He attacked me and I hit him back that's how the real world works there's just more blood out there." Sakura still shocked by Naruto's admission of relation to the fourth Hokage, _the _fourth Hokage the greatest hero of the village fourth Hokage.

"It's true." Sasuke confirmed when she turned to look at him. "Naruto's father was Minito Namikaze, not that he cares about it really and he prefers to call himself Uzumaki just to avoid the attention that his father's surname brings." The Uchiha explained not understanding in the slightest because of the sheer amount of pride he took in calling himself an Uchiha, he couldn't imagine ever not calling himself one.

Sakura was trying to not look at Naruto in a new light understanding that the blond obviously now dead parents did not change the ninja in front of her at all but still she was finding it difficult. She was snapped out of her thoughts though when Naruto called out to her throwing her his katana.

"I bought this one today when Sasuke and I were out grabbing some ninja tools so if you want you can have my Katana." Naruto explained glad that she wasn't going to make a big deal out of his father being the fourth and to his surprise glad that she very happily accepted the katana. She even went so far as to come over and hug him for it, asking if she could change the embroidery on the hilt which of course Naruto was fine with as after all it was hers now.

Sasuke showed her some pointers about how to use it that they had been taught to pass the time until Kakashi arrived and Naruto thought about Konohamaru. He was only a little confused and he admit impressed that his kick hadn't put the kid on the ground but he was more than a little vexed that his knee hadn't put him out especially as he had actually been trying and felt that he couldn't have hit him any harder without breaking a few bones.

"Tough brat." Naruto mumbled to himself repeating Kyuubi's words with a little smile on his face.

Kakashi arrived a little later than he usually did but his students were all too caught up in their own activities to really notice. The jounin noted that they all now had swords seeing as Naruto had gone and got himself a much larger weapon and given his katana to Sakura. Kakashi wondered if he should brush up on his own ken-jutsu if they were actually intent on using them as he called them over.

"Looks like your outburst didn't go unnoticed yesterday Naruto." Kakashi chuckled completely ignoring how serious it was that that Naruto had come very close to lashing out at a fellow shinobi. Said shinobi would most likely be dead right now if Sasuke hadn't calmed his friend down enough to storm out of the room but that was old news. "We have a C-Rank mission to clear out a group of bandits about a day's travel from the village." Kakashi told them letting Sasuke and Sakura look over the mission scroll while Naruto just grinned thanking the gods that they were finally getting some action.

"Now say whatever goodbyes you need to and grab enough gear to last for at least a couple of days." Kakashi told them before disappearing with a body flicker. The team of genin looked at each other in excitement before rushing off to get their gear sorted. Naruto had a feeling that this mission was going to be great.

**Authors note**

**Well I don't what it is about Naruto at the moment but I really enjoyed writing this chapter and hope you all enjoy it. If any of you want to know then yes Konohamaru will be showing up a bit more, ive always liked the relationship that he and Naruto have with one another, you know the whole brothers/mentor, student kind of relationship. **

**Anyway hope to get the next one done soon. **

**Please review. **


	9. Chapter 9: Mission

**Final Syai Lunar Generation: First off you name is now FSLG much easier for me to remember k? :P Second you used the word awesome eight times in your review my ego likes this very much please keep it up. Third I'm glad you liked the last chapter yes Naruto is badass but unfortunately there won't be much chance to show off his badassness when the enemy are just some bandits **

**Guest: Whoever you are thank you for the review and I'm glad that you have enjoyed the story so far. **

** 1: Interesting name is it random or chosen? Anyway thank you I try my best with these but I'm not entirely satisfied with the way my chapters come out I find that I don't leave enough to the readers imagination and try to explain everything only to fail :/ Don't worry about the blood lines I know how insane some stories go because the main character usually gets to be too OP. No worries about that here. I don't want to add spoilers too early but the Iwa genin team will be making another appearance but not any time soon. Thank you for your thank you. **

**The Darkness of a Shadow: It's not giant, Zabuza's is giant. Naruto's is just bigger and heavier which is more suited to his style of fighting than a katana.**

**KitElizaKing: Glad to see you again I hope that you enjoy this like you seem to have the others. Yes Naruto is giving Sakura a chance and next chapter will be her test whether she knows it or not, lets hope she's on her A game. Yeah I figured that Iruka would come to hate Naruto with a passion because of his parent's loss and with Naruto out of the village Iruka had nothing to contradict those thoughts of him being a monster. **

**TokyoDaylight: Thank you my friend. **

**Chapter 9: Mission**

Naruto and Sasuke were quick to make it back to the training grounds after Kakashi dismissed them as most of the supplies that they needed had been bought that day and were still in the bags that Naruto's clones had brought back earlier. The boys sealed a few spare pair of clothes into a scroll each along with some basic field gear and rations into another. Naruto found it funny how he could seal all of the stuff that he needed into a scroll each then seal each of those scrolls into a single scroll, he had clothes, camping gear, food, spare weapons and a basic medical supplies each sealed into different scrolls then sealed into another scroll so he only had a very light and slim scroll to carry for all his non-combat gear.

Sakura wasn't far behind the boys on returning to the field though she had a small backpack with her extras and she changed her usual dress for a simple sleeveless red top and a small pink apron skirt, she still had her black shorts on and was even sporting some black gloves along with her hair being tied back in a tight pony tail, all in all Naruto thought she looked very… professional. The blond made a point to look away when he realised that he was staring at her slightly but smirked when he noticed Sasuke do a slight double take at Sakura's sudden change in attire.

To her credit Sakura either didn't notice or didn't care about her boys reactions and sat down against the post next to Naruto and asked why he was reading a book on sealing basics.

"Well I noticed the seals on your cast and wanted to learn more about them." Naruto admitted glancing to his side when he saw the sheath of his old katana flicker across the edge of his vision. Sakura had the blade tied around her waist like a samurai but she was frowning at the weapon and kept adjusting it clearly not very familiar with it yet. Thinking about the medical seals for a moment Naruto looked at the cast on Sakura's arm and wondered if it was going to be a problem but quickly shrugged that thought off, Sakura had trained with them for a short while yesterday when she had the cast and she had done just fine. "Besides it's that rare that it'll be a good skill to develop." Naruto mumbled mostly to himself until a hand silently plucked the book from his grasp and another significantly smaller book dropped in his lap.

"Your god father's beginner basics are a much better starting point." Naruto and the rest of team seven just looked up to see Kakashi crouched on the post Naruto was leaning against, the jounin had a small backpack on like Sakura but didn't look any different. He gave them a small eye smile as he casually threw the book in his hand away. "That thing is a waste of paper." Nodding dumbly Naruto just opened the book now in his lap and began reading, the cover was a little blank and it looked more than a bit battered but as Naruto quickly flicked through the pages he saw some quite complex looking seals in the later chapters.

"Thanks kaka-sensei." Naruto said smiling up at his sensei before going back to reading the new book. Kakashi just stared at his students for a moment wondering why they weren't getting at him to start their mission, Sasuke was quietly practicing a fire style jutsu that wasn't going very well and Sakura was looking over Naruto's shoulder to read with him. Kakashi just shrugged and slid off of the post to sit with his back against it behind Naruto; if his students weren't in a rush to start a mission then he wasn't going to hold it against them it gave him more time to read his own book. "Hey Kakashi you said that my… god father, wrote this?" Naruto asked after a few minutes getting a quiet 'hmm' from the jounin.

"Yep your god father." The Cyclops jounin said casually turning a page in his book before dropping the bombshell on them. "Jiraiya of the Sanin." Kakashi had to actively try and hold back his laughter at the reaction that that got out of the three genin, Sasuke's eyes widened dramatically and he stumbled in his technique to look at Kakashi, Sakura gasped and stared at Naruto wondering just how many more prominent shinobi had ties to him, Naruto's head just popped up and was about to shout a remark before the Kyuubi added his own shocked thoughts.

_**"What! That fool is your god father?"**_ Kyuubi shouted making Naruto cringe at how loud he was being. _**"How do I not know this?" **_The fox demanded lashing his tails around in vexation, he didn't really care about humans or who Naruto was related to but he had been inside of Kushina for all of her adult life and most of her childhood, not remembering or worse not noticing the decision to name her sons god father was serious. Kyuubi learned a lot from being sealed inside the wife of the last Hokage and while at the time everything that he heard had been nothing that he wanted to concern himself with some of that information had helped Naruto and Sasuke's lives outside the village. Not to mention the fact that being sealed inside of two shinobi and having been a part of a battle involving the two greatest shinobi in history had left him with a not small amount of knowledge of what a ninja could do. Not knowing something that he thought he should that could affect Naruto pissed him off especially when...

"That old pervert is my god father?!" Naruto yelled getting up to stare at Kakashi who had quickly abandoned all sense of amusement at the reaction, Naruto had met his godfather? "You have got to be kidding me." Naruto almost begged, Sasuke cringed in the background at the thought of that man, Sanin or not, being his godfather, Sakura just looked hopelessly confused at the commotion.

"Nope Jiraiya is your godfather Naruto." Kakashi eye smiled before standing to look at his student more seriously. "Judging by your reaction I take it that you've met him." Kakashi commented more than asked getting a nod from both Naruto and Sasuke. Kakashi's mind was traveling a mile a minute at this point; Jiraiya had met Naruto and not brought him back? Was it possible that the Sanin didn't recognise him, no that was impossible Naruto was Minito incarnate there was no way the that the teacher of his sensei would mistake Naruto for anyone else, so why? Had he been in the middle of a mission, that was just as unlikely, Jiraiya hadn't been back into the village since Naruto left six years ago, that wasn't to say that he had defected he just didn't see the point in returning when he was of more use out in the field. So why not bring Naruto back or at the very least take the blond and Sasuke, the _last_ Uchiha, under his wing? It didn't make any sense, he may have felt an emotional attachment to Naruto like Kakashi did but not Sasuke, the Sanin should have at least sent him back, kicking and screaming if he had to. Kakashi sighed internally when that thought crossed his head maybe that's exactly why Jiraiya didn't do it, because they clearly didn't want to be here. Sasuke was cold and indifferent most of the time unless it came to Naruto where he was in fact fiercely loyal and almost as hot tempered as the blond though he hid it very well. Naruto on the other hand had a barely concealed hatred for anything to do with the village expressed very clearly when he thought no one was listening or looking and even if he didn't the look in his eyes most of the time when they were walking through the village was enough.

Kakashi was so caught up in his own thoughts that he almost missed what Naruto said next.

"Yeah we were in the Fang country when we found him in some Inn, what a year ago?" Naruto asked turning to face Sasuke who nodded walking over to the others as he did.

"Eleven months ago." He smirked at the look Naruto gave him.

"Okay so eleven months almost a year ago." Naruto growled lightly hitting Sasuke in the arm with a small glare before turning back to Kakashi. "He was being a total perv and had like three different woman hanging off of him." Naruto snorted as he remembered the totally plastered look on the old man's face when they got there, he was so out of it that he didn't notice Naruto drag his ass out of the place when he was getting too rowdy until he was face down in the dirt outside. In fact now that Naruto thought about it Jiraiya looked like he had seen a ghost when he turned to look at who had thrown him out, Naruto didn't really care about it at the time but if the Sanin was his godfather then it might explain the reaction still he didn't see the pervert after so he didn't even bother thinking about it at the time.

"It seems odd that he wouldn't try and find you though." Kakashi admitted after Naruto told him about the encounter the jounin was cut off mid thought though when Naruto stiffened and Sasuke just said.

"That was right before our last job though, we didn't stick around for long. We headed straight for the Lightning country." Sasuke said clearly noticing Naruto's reaction. "We were in the northern part of Fang and took a ship so I doubt he would have followed us." One of Konoha's Sanin in the lightning country looking for their missing jinchūriki would raise more than a few hard to answer questions and that was if Jiraiya even knew that they had gone that way in the first place.

Kakashi thought it over for a few moments before coming to a similar conclusion he seriously doubted that Jiraiya would have done nothing upon finding his godson again but if Naruto and Sasuke moved on before the Sanin could act then it would make sense, still no word have ever reached Kakashi that Naruto was alright, he had no emotional stake with Sasuke until they returned but Naruto. Kakashi had specifically asked the Hokage that if any news came up involving Naruto that he be informed he may have only been an ANBU and not been able to request sensitive information like that without a reason but just a message that Naruto was alive would have been something to Kakashi, he never pegged Hiruzen to be the kind of man to withhold something like that either.

"So wait a second my old man was the Fourth, my mother was the last official survivor of a prominent clan that once owned an entire ninja village and my god father is a bloody Sanin." Naruto clarified wondering why this particular thought hadn't occurred to him before. "So shouldn't I have one hell of an inheritance?" Sasuke just blinked at his friend while Kakashi wondered himself, he received a lot from his father after his death the small clan estate was humble compared to the major clans but his father was a famous ninja. Naruto's father was a Hokage and his mother must have claimed most if not all of the inheritance from the old Uzumaki clan shouldn't he have _something?_

"Maybe." Kakashi admitted actually thinking about it the same thought was occurring to Sasuke, he had found a few scrolls around the clan compound and even a few in the old meeting place but nothing substantial and defiantly nothing of the supposed clan fortune that the Uchiha's were meant to possess not to mention the extensive library of jutsu they were said to have amassed. "The Hokage is meant to keep a record of all clan holdings and finances so if your parents did leave you anything then there would be a record of it."

Naruto looked to Sasuke for a moment before making up his mind and walking away from his team.

"Naruto we do have an actual mission to do." Kakashi said half-heartedly nose deep in his book once more as the blond walked away obviously heading to go see the Hokage. Naruto just waved over his shoulder as he wandered away saying that he'd meet them at the gate after he was done.

"Why didn't we think of this earlier?" Naruto wondered aloud thinking about how much of an idiot he was for overlooking something so simple all parents left their children something right, so a fucking Hokage that was said to have never made a wasted move must have prepared for the eventuality that he may die and leave his son with nothing. "I mean I'm the last survivor of a once powerful clan, I'm like Sasuke there must be something right?"

_**"Your mother collected a lot of stuff from her village after it was destroyed." **_ Kyuubi said thinking back to when Kushina made the journey back to Uzushiogakura and picked through the ruins. She had been devastated at the time and the emotional bleed over had almost been too much for Kyuubi to stand but he remembered he making her way back with more than a little loot. _**"I remember her having a stash of scrolls from her village and your father had an entire library filled with jutsu notes."**_

"Oh and I wonder why that old bastard didn't mention anything about it." Naruto said sarcastically picking up his pace and jumping through the trees he really needed that mission now, being able to get away from the village for a little while would be a blessing. Naruto steeled himself somewhat when the tower came into view half expecting the old man to simply shrug off the question with a simple no; Naruto for once was going to be pleasantly surprised, kind of.

"Lord Hokage will see you now." Naruto didn't say anything as he just walked into the Hokage's office getting a surprised and maybe weary look from the old man. Naruto smiled internally as he thought back to when he and Sasuke had first arrived back in the village and how Saurtobi felt guilty about the situation that Naruto was in.

"Naruto what can I do for you?" Hiruzen asked not unkindly as he leaned back in his chair, the blond felt a pang of sympathy for him for a moment when he thought about being sat in that chair all day with all that_ paperwork_, Naruto shuddered at the thought, how many reports did a Kage have to go through? Who in their right mind became a Kage? "I thought you had a mission with Kakashi today, a C-Rank if I'm not mistaken." Hiruzen said making a show of looking at a piece of paper when Naruto didn't doubt that the Hokage knew what every ninja under his command was assigned to do today and didn't need to refer to a paper.

"Yeah thanks for that by the way, another D-Rank and I would have gone insane." Naruto chuckled feeling his mood lighten a little as the old man smiled but he wanted to get to the heart of the matter and then leave for his mission. "I wanted to know if my parents left me anything behind and I think Sasuke does to though he didn't say anything." Naruto explained getting a surprised look from Hiruzen. Nothing was said for several minutes until the Kage sighed and dipped his hand into a draw in his desk and retrieved a scroll.

"I'm not entirely sure why I didn't just tell you about this to begin with, actually I do know." Hiruzen said looking up at Naruto with a serious expression on his face that Naruto guessed many had seen when the Hokage went to war. Naruto wasn't sure what he did to deserve such a look but felt that this was a critical turning point in his life or at the very least immediate future. "I don't know why you and Sasuke came back to the village Naruto. I didn't and I won't tell you everything that you are due until I am sure of why you returned." The Hokage couldn't have missed the look of shock and no small amount of anger on Naruto's face at that point but he went on regardless.

"You have the Nine Tailed Fox sealed inside of you and could become a serious threat at any moment for all I know you could have been placed here by an enemy village to be used as a wild card at any time, you've made it abundantly clear that you hate this village and its people."

"WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?!" Naruto couldn't take it anymore this shrivelled up old bastard was going to keep what was rightfully his on the grounds that he didn't know why Naruto returned? "This village has done nothing but make me a pariah since the day I was born. They beat me to the brink of death in the streets day after day Hiruzen! What do you expect me to feel?!" Naruto demanded looking the Hokage in the eye and meeting him glare for glare he was not going to bow to this man on this. "This village, the village that you and every other shinobi seem to hold so dear to them has done nothing but hurt me, these people that you seem so eager to protect have hunted me like _I _was the animal. I won't hide how I feel about them and I will not stand here and listen to you fucking defend them from that!" Naruto was so close to losing control that he could feel the demons cloak an inch away from forming. Sarutobi's ANBU guard had appeared in the room the moment Naruto started shouting but he didn't care to be honest he knew that he wasn't going to attack the Hokage but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to make a damn good job of expressing his point.

Hiruzen for his part was hiding his true emotions very well he knew that there wasn't an ounce of dishonestly in Naruto's words; the village had done absolutely nothing to warrant his trust or even the small medial tasks that it had been asking of him the past couple of week. The Hokage didn't dismiss his ANBU guard as he carried on though wondering if he might actually need them.

"Then why are you here?" That one question seemed to take the wind right out of Naruto's sails and the blond seemed to generate a completely different kind of anger namely one at himself. Naruto sighed not meeting Hiruzen's eyes, he hated having to admit why they were here especially in a room full of shinobi elite but Hiruzen wanted the truth and if that simple fact was going to become such an obstacle if it remained hidden then Naruto was willing to tell the old man. Especially when the matter of his inheritance was on the line, having scrolls from a clan specialising in Fūinjutsu the personal library of a world renowned Hokage and maybe access to the Uchiha clan jutsu library was exactly the kind of edge that he and Sasuke needed. So if he had to be honest with the old man to get that then it was a small price to pay.

"We're running."

"Hey Naruto." Sakura called when she saw her teammate wandering down the road towards the main gate. Naruto waved at his teammates before taking in exactly who was there with them; stood beside Sakura was Sasuke and Kakashi but also another four ninja. It was clearly another genin team probably one that graduated at the same time as Sakura did if their age was any indication.

Naruto gave them a good look over and immediately recognised one of the boys to be an Inuzuka, if the clan markings on his cheeks weren't enough of a giveaway then his slit animal like pupils and puppy ninken standing next to him were. He was wearing a grey fur lined coat with his hood up along with dark greyish pants that reached down to his calves. His headband and shinobi sandals were blue as well. When a gust of wind blew past Naruto the puppy at the genin's feet gave a fearful yap that got his masters full attention before he looked back up at Naruto with a frown.

The girl stood next to him was identified instantly because of her eyes; she was a Hyuga with long dark blue almost black hair with two bangs framing her face. She wore what looked like a traditional set of robes that were more than likely Hyuga, a white shirt with loose sleeves closed on the right shoulder with a matching pair of pants that had a knee length dark blue apron over the top of them. Her blue forehead protector was being worn around her neck and she had black shinobi sandals on her feet. Her reaction to Naruto was a lot more amusing then the others for she openly stared at Naruto for a moment before seemed to catch herself and trying to school her features despite the blush now present on her cheeks. Naruto pegged her as a noble from the way she held herself but noticed that she seemed… to tense with the posture, too uncomfortable in a way that made it look wrong.

Naruto didn't recognise the third genin but his chakra felt odd, Naruto felt like it was crawling around as he tried to focus but didn't give it much thought as he took in the ninja's appearance. He had dark bushy brown hair and was wearing a dark pair of sunglasses with a sea green jacket that had a high upturned collar and a pair of light brown pants. Both his forehead protector and sandals were blue. Naruto couldn't tell anything about the last genin from his observations he couldn't even look him in the eye because of his glasses which annoyed him slightly.

The sensei was in a word hot; Naruto tried his best not to look at her too long but even Kyuubi let out a wolf whistle when he got a good look at her. She had wild shoulder length black hair and seemed to only be wearing an armoured red blouse that was missing the left sleeve with a wide bandage like material with thorn patterns over the top. Her forearms and thighs were wrapped in bandages and she wore a black forehead protector with black sandals.

Naruto quickly looked back at Sakura when the woman caught his eye lest she think that he was staring at her.

"Naruto this is team 8 they graduated at the same time as we did." Sakura explained with a smile dragging him over to make introductions.

"Sup." The Inuzuka said holding out a fist. "Names Kiba." Naruto raised an eyebrow at his attitude especially when his team collectively shook their heads and the Hyuga pushed him to the side.

"Kiba that's not how you introduce yourself." The girl sighed smiling at Naruto and giving a slight bow. "Hello I'm Hinata Hyuga pleased to make your acquaintance; these are my team mates Kiba Inuzuka and Shino Aburame." She said looking at each one in turn before looking down at the puppy on the floor when he barked. "Yes of course I couldn't forget you. That is Akamaru Kiba's ninken partner and our sensei is Kurenai Yuhi." Naruto looked at the other team for a long moment and just as the silence seemed to be stretching out shrugged.

"Naruto Uzumaki." He said simply before walking past the other team if the third genin was an Aburame then the colony of insects inside of his body was probably why his chakra felt like it was …moving. Naruto ignored the look on Sakura's face as he walked up to Kakashi. "Are we ready to go?"

"Naruto." Sakura growled out getting an annoyed 'what?' from her clueless teammate. Sakura just shook her head again and turned back to Hinata bowing almost exactly as she did a moment ago with a clearly strained smile on her face. "I'm sorry Hinata he hasn't learnt proper manners yet."

"What does it matter he gave his name." Kiba shrugged although he was a little annoyed to have just been ignored like that by a complete stranger, it wounded his pride a little not that he was going to admit that though. "He's probably just too weak to…" Kiba was cut off when Naruto looked over his shoulder with a glare and levelled Team 8 with enough killing intent to make Akamaru whimper.

"Watch what you say mutt." Was all the blond said as he finished walking towards Kakashi and gave Sasuke a significant look one which the Uchiha could only frown at in confusion. Sasuke couldn't read his mind and wouldn't know what the look was for, yet, Naruto had no doubt that his best friend would quickly put the pieces together and figure out what had happened before long.

_**"You made the right choice kit."**_ Kyuubi said without the slightest bit hint of hesitation in his voice not that anyone could really tell when the fox hesitated anyway. Naruto just shrugged mentally what was done was done and there was little point worrying about it now, the Hokage knew why they were here… Mostly, there was no way in hell Naruto was going to tell him the whole story. _**"You did the best with what you could back there.**_

_"Thanks Kyu." _Naruto thought looking out of the massive gates that seemed to separate Konoha from the rest of the forest. _"I really want to kill that old man right now though." _The only reason that Naruto hadn't made some stupid move or another against the old man was because he believed Naruto enough to actually hand over his inheritance or what little of it he had. Apparently both his father and mother had separate clan estates that were now legally his as per their separate wills, which just so happened to have stashed away in the Hokage's desk draw sealed in a small scroll for convenience.

Unfortunately the Uzumaki estate hadn't been used for years since Kushina moved in with Minato quite early on so it was in more than a little bit of disrepair not that anyone could actually access the estate because of the numerous blood seals and traps littering the place. The same for his father's estate as well according to the Hokage, only someone with their blood could access the estates or someone like Naruto's godfather that actually had the experience with seals to break the blood barriers. Naruto felt a brief bit of pride and satisfaction when Hiruzen told him that Jiraiya disobeyed a direct order in leaving the seals intact and the only other person even close to the Sanin in the village was Kakashi and he claimed to not be of a high enough level to do it.

Naruto had to supress a smirk when he thought about that wondering if Kakashi really didn't know enough or if he was just giving a plausible excuse because he didn't have Jiraiya's standing as a Sanin to disobey a direct order from the Hokage and get away with it. Either way the blond found himself looking up to Kakashi more and more, he actually had that picture that his sensei gave him stashed away in his ninja pouch, he didn't want to risk leaving it anywhere.

"_I'll have to make sure that I have a good look around both compounds when I get back." _Naruto thought, mainly to himself, his mother was the last Uzumaki that was affiliated with the village and must have had secrets about Fūinjutsu stashed away from before the clan was destroyed not to mention what must have been in his father's personal library. Naruto felt his spirits rising at the prospect of having access to a host of jutsu that others didn't.

"So what we waiting for Kaka-sensei?" Naruto asked getting a kick out of watching Kakashi's eye twitch ever so slightly at the nickname, he'd be very disappointed when the man actually got used to it enough not to react to it.

"Kurenai's team are heading for Nami no Kuni, the land of Waves, for a mission." Kakashi explained wondering why he couldn't keep his cool around Naruto and that damned nickname of his. "Our bandit force is to the east of the village so we decided to travel together for a day or two before heading our separate ways."

"I thought our mission was only a day away." Even with another team tagging along why the sudden increase in mission duration? "Why would it take another couples of days?"

"Their mission is to escort a bridge builder back to his home in Nami and."

"He's a civilian not a ninja." Naruto finished off trying to decide whether that was a good or bad thing, on one hand the mission would take longer but on the other it was more time out of the village with nice scenery and good weather. "So where is this guy then and why are we waiting on his ass?"

"Hey whiskers!" Naruto turned to look back down the main street when he heard a familiar voice shouting and to his surprise he saw Konohamaru running towards the two genin teams with a big grin on his face rather than the scowl he had before. Naruto couldn't help but gape at the kid when he stopped in front of him with some new additions to his cheeks, the kid had gone and drawn a set of three whisker like marks on each cheek exactly like Naruto's.

"Konohamaru, what's with?" Sakura half asked pointing to the boys cheeks he hadn't had those when he was waiting with her for Naruto and Sasuke earlier. Naruto was just staring at the brat not even a meter in front of him, was he mocking him, did this brat think it was funny to imitate him!?

"I wanted to look like boss!" The blond stopped his thoughts dead in their tracks when he heard that, 'boss?' Looking down at Konohamaru again Naruto noticed that he was actually smiling up _at him._

"Why am I suddenly boss?" Naruto demanded grabbing the kid by his goofy helmet and rubbing at the marks on his cheeks. "What the hell do you think you're doing with these?!"

"Ah boss stop!" Konohamaru yelped when Naruto grabbed him, trying to push himself away from the thumb rubbing at his cheek but found that he couldn't move an inch in Naruto's iron like grip. "I was trying to look cool like you."

"Why you idiot?" Naruto growled letting the kid go and crouching down to look at the mark he just rubbed, it wasn't ordinary ink or it would have just rubbed off but the whisker that he rubbed hadn't even smudged. "What did you paint these with?"

"Cas I'm going to be your apprentice!" Naruto stopped everything that he was doing and just stared at the kid, even Kyuubi was in shock. '_My apprentice, can I even have an apprentice I'm twelve_?'It wouldn't be official of course after all no one would take it seriously unless Naruto did something big to get his name out there but the idea of having an apprentice seemed cool until he realised that having this kid as his apprentice would not be cool. "And I used some ink that I found near granddad's scrolls."

"That stuffs meant to be permanent." Naruto chuckled seeing Konohamaru's eyes go wide a little at that before he grinned and just shrugged saying how they were cool anyway. Thinking about it for another second Naruto shook his head as he stood back up. "Nah get lost kid why would I even want an apprentice let alone a runt like you?" Pushing Konohamaru over to prove his point Naruto just sneers down at him until the boy gets back up with a determined look on his face.

"Because you're really strong and you can."

"No."

"But I."

"No, brat now beat it." Naruto said turning his back on the boy to walk back over to Sasuke who still looked confused by the whole exchange, Kakashi barely even bothered to look up from his perverted book and he only did that to glance at Kurenai who was glaring at him for reading it in public. Team 8 seemed just as confused as Sakura about Konohamaru's actions until all four of them widened their eyes when Konohamaru let out a war cry and charged at Naruto's back.

Naruto turned fast enough to see Konohamaru swipe at him with that wooden kunai again but casually side stepped to get out of his way.

_"What is with this kid?" _Naruto wondered as he stepped out of Konohamaru's path again and again. _"First he gets some messed up idea of beating me, only to change his mind and want to be my apprentice when I throw him into a wall."_ Having enough of just moving out of the way Naruto stuck his foot out the next time he sidestepped, tripping Konohamaru up as he went past this time. "Listen, Konohamaru right, you've got guts kid but you're starting to piss me off." Naruto turning away again intending to start team 7's mission whether they were ready or not only to growl when he heard Konohamaru get back up and charge him again. "Fine no more me being nice." Naruto declared hitting the kid with a spinning kick as he turned back around.

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted she could accept that her teammate was violent but this was just going too far. The pink haired kunoichi didn't get very far though as Sasuke put a hand on her shoulder the Uchiha wanted to see how this played out.

Naruto watched as Konohamaru turned his backwards fall into a clumsy instinctual backwards roll only to get back on his feet again. _**"He's your kind of stupid." **_Kyuubi commented remembering how Naruto always used to be when he trained, always getting beaten down but he kept pushing forward with nothing but a will to not give up, the fox often wondered where along the line that will to never give up, to never back down went. The blond was more than skilled enough now that he didn't have to find a hundred ways to not make something work to find a way to make it work. He could get one look at a jutsu, whether it be Tai, Gen or Nin and break it down now because of the training that he had done. _**"If you were actually looking for an apprentice kit what would you look for?" **_Kyuubi asked already knowing the answer as Naruto smiled at the charging boy once again lashing out with a kick that knocked him back.

This only went on for a few minutes before Konohamaru was a panting mess struggling to get back to his feet again but he did and he didn't run away or give up. Naruto smirked and held himself ready for the kids next charge there was a fire in Konohamaru's eyes that reminded him of himself, the fact that the kid was as much of a stubborn idiot that Naruto was when he was younger helped a lot as well. Konohamaru looked like he was getting ready for another charge when a shinobi suddenly jumped down in front of him.

"Honourable grandson are you alright?" Naruto gave the ninja one look over before scowling at him, why was he getting in the way? The shinobi was wearing the standard Konoha ninja outfit minus the flak jacket and was wearing his headband like a bandana he also had a pair of black sunglasses over his eyes. "Who did this to you?" He asked snapping his head in Naruto's direction when Konohamaru's eyes flicked over to the blond and immediately put himself between Konohamaru and Naruto when he saw the blond. Naruto couldn't help but narrow his eyes at that did this guy think that Naruto was just attacking Konohamaru randomly in the streets or something, there were two Jōnin and five genin standing behind the blond that would be more than willing to stop that from happening if it were the case.

"Ebisu what are you doing here?" Konohamaru cried not liking or understanding the way that his personal trainer was looking at Naruto the blond in question was returning the glare that he was getting from Ebisu tenfold actually managing to get under the Tokubetsu Jōnin's skin with his animal like eyes. "And stop glaring at boss, he hasn't done anything."

"You shouldn't associate with those sorts of people honourable grandson." Ebisu said to Konohamaru but didn't take his eyes off of Naruto for an instant as he spoke. "If you wish to be Hokage someday then you need to stick to the training that I have set for you."

"My sorts of people." Naruto said letting just a hint of killing intent seep into his words as he took a couple of steps forward towards the now shaking Konohamaru and battle ready Ebisu. "Care to explain that?" Kakashi looked like he was about to interfere at that point he didn't like the way Ebisu was looking at Naruto and he would be damned if he was going to stand by and let people hate on his pseudo little brother/ student and do nothing about it. That ship had already come and gone and he lost the only thing that he still cared about once because he didn't do anything about it like hell he was going to just sit by and watch it happen again.

"EB-" The Jōnin cut himself off when Sasuke flashed him a confident grin and just turned back to watch what was going to happen.

"I am training the honourable grandson to be the next Hokage; my training is a short cut to greatness. I can't have him a distracted from this path by a monster like you." The two ninja stared at each other for a few moments before Naruto slowly and deliberately pulled out a Kunai from his holster and threw it into the dirt next to Konohamaru's feet.

"Pick it up Konohamaru." The blond ordered not taking his eyes off of Ebisu as he did. "I can't have my _apprentice _using some crappy wooden kunai." The look on Ebisu's face was worth any kind of backlash Naruto might get for doing this and Konohamaru leapt for joy once he heard Naruto say that he was his apprentice, he quickly picked the discarded kunai up and looked it over in wonder. Kurenai made some kind of protest about giving a weapon to an untrained child but Naruto ignored her in favour of smirking at Ebisu.

"You're just a genin you can't take an apprentice!" The ninja shouted getting a very fox like grin out of Naruto as Konohamaru ran over to him before the Jōnin could stop his charge. "Honourable grandson!"

"You're right officially I can't but you can't stop me from teaching him anything." Naruto grinned forming a Kage bunshin that picking his new apprentice up and jumped away with him. "So let's see what I can teach him in a few hours!" Naruto laughed as his clone jumped further into the village to hide away from the Jōnin. Ebisu looked absolutely livid to the point where Naruto thought he might attack but the trainer just huffed and jumped off to follow Naruto's clone or clones. "Wonder how long it takes him to find them." The blond muttered turning around and raising an eyebrow at the old man that was now stood beside team 8.

"You know that's going to cause a headache." Sasuke said with a shake of his head just as Sakura gave a tired smile. Naruto shrugged at his teammates and walked back over to the village gates noticing the strange looks he was getting from the chunin on gate duty. Why was everyone looking at him weird team 8 seemed beside themselves, Kiba was giving him this freaky grin same for his ninken if Naruto was honest, Shino didn't look any different but them it was hard to tell with his coat and sunglasses. Hinata was blushing up a storm for some reason and Kurenai was glaring at him like he had just kicked her flower bed or something. "That's the guy their escorting so we can go now."

"Finally." Naruto sighed pretty much ignoring everyone else as he walked out of the gates he knew that they could catch up and he wanted to get away as fast as possible, despite gaining an actual apprentice which the blond found put a smile on his face just at the thought of teaching someone like Konohamaru his encounter with Ebisu had left a bitter taste in his mouth. His first thought was to put himself in front of Konohamaru as if to protect him from Naruto, he could have understood that if it was just for the reason that the blond was kicking the stuffing out of the kid but it wasn't. _'Are they always going to see a monster or do I actually have something to look forward to?' _Naruto may not have liked to admit it but living in a Konoha where people didn't avoid him or fear him completely was appealing after all his father had been a Hokage and as much as he hated it, it was home he still felt some sense of duty towards it. "Stupid village wish I could just burn it down."

"Now, now Naruto that seems a little rash." Kakashi admonished getting the blond to jump a little he had been so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice his sensei walk up beside him.

"Can't blame me for wanting it Kaka-sensei." Naruto growled clenching his fists as he walked, he couldn't wait to get to their mission he was going to tear into those bandits with a vengeance. "I just want to be able to…To." Sighing Naruto slumped a little as he walked along staring at the ground and didn't look up when his sensei started talking again.

"I can't really blame you but talking like that will get you in trouble and it's my job to keep you out of it." Kakashi joked getting Naruto to cringe he probably wasn't making Kakashi's life very easy especially when he pulled crap like took the Hokage's grandson as an apprentice. Still on the other hand he doubted that Kakashi would ever complain about being bored while he was in charge of team 7.

"Yeah sorry for that."

"Don't worry about it." Kakashi waved off face in his perverted orange book as he walked. The pair stayed quiet for a few minutes as Kakashi seemed to mull something over in his mind. "You know Naruto I don't think that there are many shinobi in the village that actively hate you." Naruto actually did look up at his Sensei when he said that, he thought that everyone hated him from some of the looks that he had gotten when he walked about the village on his own. The outburst from his old academy instructor didn't help matters either. "No I know for a fact that there are very few Jōnin that hate you. Fear you, a couple maybe, weary of you a lot but outright hate? There's not many."

"How do you know that?" Naruto almost demanded wondering exactly how Kakashi could know such a thing, unless he went out of his way to ask every Jōnin in the village their opinion of him.

"Jōnin lounge." Kakashi pointed out getting Naruto to nod to himself. "Every Jōnin was informed of your return they had to be, the ANBU as well. You _are _a jinchūriki after all, no matter how stable you are there always the chance that you'll turn into a homicidal rampaging monster." Kakashi said in a completely casual tone getting a dry look from his young blond student. "Anyway I just came out and asked them a lot of my old class mates were just worried about what would happen if the Kyuubi got out but they were looking at it from a completely objective point of view."

"How does this help me Kakashi?" Naruto demanded that sounded just as bad as them hating him.

"It levels the battlefield." Kakashi smiled getting a helpless shrug from Naruto the blond was completely lost at this point. "It means that they are going to judge you based on what you do from now on and not entirely on what's sealed inside of you. If you get a couple of higher level missions under your belt then the other shinobi in the village are going to start gossiping about Konoha's jinchūriki helping the village and on the off chance that you do something big like take down someone in the bingo book or something and people will really start to talk."

"Yeah about how good I am at killing things." Naruto muttered not really seeing it as Kakashi did, in his mind no matter what he did the shinobi and villagers would find a way to twist any gossip about him into something bad. "Thanks for trying though Kakashi."

"Well you know a good place to start would be becoming friends with your newest teammate." Kakashi said pointing back to Sakura who was chatting excitedly with Hinata apparently the two were friends from the academy. "Shinobi will probably start asking her questions about you and Sasuke before too long. So her opinion will go a long way as well… And if anyone starts badmouthing you I'll start cracking some skulls myself." Naruto looked up at his sensei for a moment before grinning to himself and turning his head away to hide his blush.

"Like you were going to with Ebisu?" Naruto asked feeling a lot better now, Kakashi was probably right even if Naruto doubted that it would work he had very little faith in the _people_ of Konoha. Something that he learned a lot time ago was that a person could be understanding and have an opinion but _people _were idiots and went with the flow, right now to flow seemed to be going against one Uzumaki Naruto.

"You had the situation handled but if it had got out of hand." Kakashi left that sentence hanging in the air before clapping Naruto on the shoulder suddenly. "Naruto, you're my student and you're my sensei's son. I will do everything in my power to protect you from _anything _but above all I want you to know that you can trust me. I'll have your back no matter what." Naruto stared up at Kakashi for a moment at a loss for words did that mean what he thought it meant, would Kakashi really do anything to protect him.

"Thanks Kakashi." Naruto smiled feeling a lot better than he did when they had just left the village. Kakashi gave himself a mental high five for a job well done as he went back to his book with a perverted giggle getting Naruto to sigh loudly. "You know you totally ruin your cool badass shinobi look with those books Kaka-sensei." The Jōnin just shrugged at his student and didn't take his eyes off of the book the boys godfather was a genius to hell with his teammate, Jiraiya should have been named the prodigy.

Naruto shook his head at his sensei and dropped back a bit to walk beside Sasuke he could tell that his friend wanted to know what he was just talking about because of the way that Naruto seemed to calm down then perk back up again but the Uchiha had enough sense to just nod at his best friend and walk along in a silence at least until said blond spoke up again.

"Hey Sasuke was it raining this morning?" Naruto asked glancing over his shoulder at a puddle that seemed to be out of place on the side of the road. It was a bright sunny day and the ground was bone dry in some places how could there be a puddle out here, granted it was under the shade of an overhanging try but still.

"No it wasn't." The friends shared a look before going tense and trying just as quickly to hide it, they were being watched.

**Cliffhangers got to love them, anyway I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, my exams have finished over here so I hope that I can get another chapter out soon but no promises you all know im not very good at keeping them **

**Please review **


	10. Chapter 10: Kiba

**Moocow4me: Hey I'm glad that you like badass Naruto and as for pairings, there are none planned so far but I'll see where the story takes me. Even so it will not be pairing central. **

**SennenGoroshi: Yeah I really suck at promises and as you can see its off of the cannon already but it will be going farrr off of the cannon. **

**Roxii-chan: So happy that you're enjoying it so far.**

**TigrezzTail: Glad to hear from you again, I think you and KitElizaKing are my top reviewers so thank you. Now I've never read the story that you spoke of in your last review. That would be an interesting idea and if I had known about it before hand I may have gone with but I already had the whole Haku thing planned so :P And yes I imagine that a few people are interested in what Naruto ended up telling the Hokage ;) Minito had the compound built just for him and his family, he is a clanless orphan. **

**The-darker-side-of-things: Thank you. **

**SnowNeko13: Now my friend Sasuke and Naruto's relationship is one of brothers, they are brothers. There will be no naru/sasu paring or Yaoi… well there's no Yaoi planned doesn't mean it won't happen but that's beside the point. I have nowhere said that this will be a Yaoi fic. It's down as an Adventure/friendship fic. I'm sorry if you misread something and were expecting this to turn into a Yaoi but it's not going to happen. **

**Ashh.m: I thank you for your kind words. I shall indeed keep it up. **

**ArcticIllustrator: I think you have posted my longest review congratulations sir and thank you but to your review. Yes the Iruka/ Naruto relationship is dead in this fic, it's sad and I hated myself for killing it but there is just no way that Iruka would ever be that kind of figure in this fic. Naruto has grown up and has Sasuke as a brother. He's neither alone nor in need of a parental figure. I'm sorry that that mad you sad. Kakashi was… well an idiot in the manga/anime, seriously letting Naruto be alone for so long WTF dude?! I've always thought since day one that Kakashi should have had a closer relationship with his students especially Naruto and Sasuke, not so much Sakura because she had her family but to an extent he should have been closer to her as well because she wasn't part of a shinobi family. I always thought that Kakashi was irresponsible towards his students; I mean he cares about them yeah but… it wasn't enough. I was slightly disappointed that you didn't review a ton to remind me **** was looking forward to the review increase: P**

**KitElizaKing: Last but no least my second fav reviewers. I thought that if Naruto would be able to connect with anyone as a friend it would be Kiba. Not everyone is as thick as the villagers and majority of the shinobi forces. Some actually understand the difference between the jail and the jailer. Hope you like how I've drawn in the wave arc. **

Blue eyes stared lifelessly upwards.

Sinking further and further into the dark abyss, the only sound was the water settling to accommodate the form of the fallen ninja. Water stung at his eyes, blurring the faint, receding light above the surface, but his vision was already dulled and the stinging paled in comparison to the wounds steadily darkening the icy water around him.

Naruto tried blinking, but even such a small movement eluded him, the effort too great for his body to even attempt. The light was completely gone now, eyes failing to register anything beyond the darkness, and the numbness slowly surrounded him as the icy water tightened its embrace. Pressure. He didn't know how far he'd sank, but he was just lucid enough to know he was well below the surface now. What little air that had been left in his lungs was forced out when he had hit the surface, but with the rate that blood was leaving his body and colouring the water around him, it was questionable which he would run out of first.

Desperately, Naruto managed to part his lips, staring up into the inky black. Yet all he could release were bubbles, the last of his air spiralling up. Then they were gone. All Naruto could do was sink as the numbness filled him completely, lost within the depths that had claimed him.

'Damn…it.'

(Two weeks earlier)

Naruto was not happy, not happy at all, he knew they were being watched, Sasuke knew they were being watched, Sakura knew that they were being watched when Sasuke dropped back and whispered in her ear, Kakashi and that Kurenai woman both knew that they were being watched if the significant glances that they kept passing between each other were anything to go by the other team more than likely knew they were being watched when Kurenai dropped back to talk to her team, the only one who didn't know that they were being watched was the only civilian in the group but no one was doing anything about it!

Naruto glanced over his shoulder again when he heard a random bird fly away from a tree behind them and caught just a glimpse of a very out of place puddle that had not only been watching them but also _following _the two genin teams and one master bridge builder for hours now. Naruto grit his teeth in annoyance as everyone kept acting normal as they walked, Kakashi had his face in that book of his giggling every now and then, Kurenai gave him a glare every time he did and seemed to be having a discussion with Shino about something or other, Sakura was quickly getting on his nerves as she chatted with Hinata almost nonstop, seriously they were being followed and she acted like that? Kiba entertained himself by taking big sniffs every now and again scenting the air drifting through the forest. Sasuke was being his usual quiet self as he walked next to Naruto occasionally glancing into the forest when something caught his interest, despite his casual front though Naruto could tell that he was alert and ready for anything.

The one thing that all the a for mentioned shinobi weren't doing however was _something_ about the two ninja following them! How did he know that it was two? Kyuubi told him, as he was able to feel two sources of darkness coming from behind their group.

"Kakashi." Naruto growled out quietly making sure that his voice didn't carry far enough to reach the painfully obvious puddle behind them. He could understand patience really he could, Naruto may not like patience or have much of it but he really could understand it, after all a hunter that didn't have patience would more than likely go hungry or something like that, Naruto heard the phrase once and couldn't quite remember it but the point was that he could understand being patient when there was a point so what was the point here? There were eight shinobi in their group, two of which were jounin level, the elite of the hidden villages why didn't they just get the drop on their would be pursuers? From Naruto's point of view subduing their stalkers and interrogating them was a far better choice than just letting them be followed, what if the pair decided that they had completed whatever task that they had appointed themselves and left? Then their group would have absolutely nothing to go on. Who were they after and why? Were there more of them in the forests or along the path ahead? They couldn't learn those things by ignoring a potential threat and hope that it went away.

"Naruto?" Kakashi replied with a sing song voice as if nothing at all bad was happening or could happen, the blond found himself gnashing his teeth at that and to his surprise found that Kiba also looked a little annoyed at his own sensei. Glad that he had at least one person who understood, Naruto opened his mouth to demand why they were letting themselves be followed but spun around when he sensed movement behind him.

In an instant the happy, supposedly, relaxed shinobi sprang into action. Team eight immediately formed a triangle formation around their very shocked charge while team seven formed a line between them and the enemy, each had a respective weapon out, Sakura with a kunai held in a reverse grip in her right hand and her left forming the ram seal, Sasuke with his Katana held in a guard stance sharingan active and scanning the landscape and Naruto with his new sword held in a reverse grip with the blade covering his body. Kyuubi was up and alert at the same time as the genin were, feeling around for the two shinobi from before and scoffed before announcing that they were fleeing the area.

Naruto relaxed and lowered his sword getting his teammates to do the same as they both trusted his sensor ability more than their own. The blond turned to give Kakashi and annoyed look before he burst out with an angry 'what the hell!' at how the two jounin were holding themselves, neither had even bothered moving just turning to look at their teams. The reason for this was twofold, one they knew that the shinobi following them were pulling back rather than attacking and two they wanted to see how their teams reacted without prompt or direction, in that regard both of the jounin were impressed with their teams and how quickly they reacted and formed their formations. Naruto was not impressed on the other hand.

"What the hell sensei!" he shouted startling poor Tazuna who still had no idea what had happened, with the way the kids reacted and how the adults stayed almost fixed in place he wasn't sure how to react, one thing he knew for sure now though was that these kids were the real deal. The speed at which they moved had surprised him, one second they were scattered about the lane and the next he had three surrounding him and another three putting themselves between him and some form of danger he assumed. Even to an untrained eye their reaction looked practiced and flawless, to a trained eye however it was even more impressive given how the two teams had been together for only a couple of weeks yet their teamwork was spot on.

When the other hidden villages mentioned Konoha and their teamwork they really weren't kidding around or exaggerating, the Village Hidden in the Leaves stressed teamwork above everything else and it was mainly because of that reason that they were labelled the strongest village, that and the fact that they seemed to produce a freak of a ninja every generation or two that took the world by storm. Kakashi and his father were just two examples that the other villages had come to fear and they were just A-ranked ninja from Konoha though Kakashi had been working hard to break through the barrier and reach S-rank level.

"Naruto calm down." Kakashi sighed understanding why Naruto was annoyed and more than a little frustrated.

"No I won't calm down." Naruto yelled pointing back down the road to where there was still a lone puddle of water that the two ninja had left behind. "Why didn't we do something about those two back when we first noticed that they were there, or in the _three hours _that they've been following us?" Naruto demanded completely ignoring the shocked and more than a little scared look on Tazuna's face as the old man looked down the road and did indeed spot a very out of place puddle.

"Yeah come on Kurenai-sensei." Kiba growled moving away from the old man now that they didn't need to protect him right this second he smelled like alcohol and it burnt Kiba's nose. "We've known that they were there for ages why didn't we do something?" Shino didn't say anything but seemed to nod in agreement as well as Sakura and Hinata who had been watching the pair of shinobi the entire time with her byakugan.

"Naruto calm down." Kakashi repeated with a little more force behind his voice actually closing his book to give the blond a good look with his single visible eye. "We didn't know what they were after and were waiting for them to make the first move." It was an awful reason, Kakashi knew it, Kurenai knew it, their teams knew it hell even Tazuna thought that it was crappy and he wasn't even a shinobi. The only thing that saved Kakashi's reasoning was the conviction behind his voice that he said it with.

Naruto huffed when his sensei carried on walking and somehow ended up walking with Kiba on one side of him and Sasuke on the other. The Inuzuka scowled at him when Naruto looked over and mumbled something about wanting some action on their first mission out of the village. Always one willing to get a little bloody himself Naruto mumbled a half-hearted agreement as they walked and seemed to calm himself down before too long.

Kakashi glanced back and sighed quietly when the two teams seemed to just forget what had just happened and carried on like they had before. The real reason why he had done nothing was actually why he said, he didn't know what those two shinobi were after and he really was waiting for them to make a move of their own. As much as Kakashi hated to say it Naruto and Sasuke were still pretty much unknowns and Kakashi himself had no shortage of enemies so the jounin didn't know why they were being tailed. Was it someone after him, he did have a sizeable bounty in the national bingo book, or could it be someone after Naruto and Sasuke? He didn't want to attack in the fear that Naruto and Sasuke might actually kill whoever was following them to cover their tracks. He thought that if their pursuers attacked first then he would be able to determine why they were being followed. If Kakashi had taken note of the look of fear on his comrade's charge's face he might have thought of a third reason; that they weren't there for any of them at all.

After the short while it had taken Naruto to cool down he noticed that Kiba kept glancing at him out of the corner of his eye and realised that Akamaru had barely taken his eyes off of him since Kiba had been walking with him.

"You got a problem?" Naruto asked still a little annoyed at how their stalkers had gotten away, damned Kakashi with his half assed reason. Kiba whispered something down to Akamaru and got a quiet yip in response before the Inuzuka actually answered Naruto's question.

"Akamaru here says that your chakra smells weird." Kiba said looking Naruto over as if there was some outwards sign as to why his ninken was freaked out by Naruto but didn't find anything. "It's like its dark and… I dunno its funky dude what's up with it?" Hearing her student describe Naruto's Chakra Kurenai tensed up and looked back at Naruto, she had been told along with every other jounin in the village about Naruto's return but she hadn't really seen him as the jinchūriki that he was until now, his possession marks were impossible to miss and his chakra had a constant bloodlust that surrounded him. Kurenai was actually shocked that she hadn't noticed it earlier and wondered whether she should consider him a risk or not, the sharp glare that she got from Kakashi answered any other questions she might have. Naruto was his student if nothing else and he was warning her to back off and leave the blond alone.

Naruto briefly considered the pros and cons of telling Kiba why his chakra was like it was, if he was honest with himself he didn't know why he hadn't just come out and told everyone about him being Kyuubi's container, well he did know actually, he was waiting for the right time to tell Sakura more than anything. While the blond didn't really care about what other people in the village thought of him he _was _concerned about what his team thought of him Sasuke's opinion, Kakashi's and even Sakura's now that he had spent some time working and training with her, all three of them mattered.

"He has a Kekkei Genkai that gives him a weird chakra." Sakura helpfully supplied when Naruto didn't answer the question which the blond was thankful for as he had almost forgotten the lie that he had used to explain Kyuubi's chakra to Sakura when they met. Everyone who wasn't in the know about Naruto's tenant accepted that reasoning quite easily which when you considered the team was easy to understand afterall Hinata had a Kekkei Genkai that gave her X-ray vision and Kiba and Shino while not having Kekkei Genkais themselves had strange abilities because of their clans.

Kakashi and Kurenai on the other hand just exchanged a look before the white haired jounin glanced back at Naruto who subtly shrugged.

"So what's it do?"

"Huh?" Naruto turned back as Kiba asked the question, the Inuzuka seemed much more at ease now that he knew, or so he thought, what was up with Naruto's chakra.

"Your chakra man what's it do, you can't have a Kekkai Genkai that doesn't do anything right?" That question had everyone's attention for one reason or another even Sasuke who had seen exactly what Naruto could do with Kyuubi's chakra, Sakura even moved a little closer to hear the answer wondering why she had never thought to ask that question herself, she had kind of just accepted that Naruto had a weird chakra and left it at that not once wondering what he could do with it.

"Well there are a couple of things that it does." Naruto started thinking about how much too actually tell them if he thought about it then he kind of did have a Kekkai Genkai Kyuubi's chakra was so intertwined with his now that Naruto didn't think they could really be separated. "I can use a chakra that's way more potent than normal and I can heal from almost anything really quickly."

"How quickly?" Kiba asked raising an eyebrow when Naruto pulled out a Kunai and cut his thumb everyone was watching with rapt attention as Naruto's blood dripped to the floor for a few moments until the blond popped his thumb in his mouth and showed everyone that there was only a rapidly fading red line where the cut had just been. "Dude that's insane! That took like…. A second!" Kiba yelled grabbing Naruto's hand to get a closer look at his thumb. Naruto was so shocked by the action that he didn't react like he usually would whenever someone tried to grab him I.E stab them.

"You are exaggerating Kiba it took approximately eleven seconds for the cut to heal." Shino said not displaying any emotion about Naruto's ability one way or the other but was quite impressed with his comrades ability. "What a useful ability." He admitted getting a nod from Hinata who had been watching Naruto's chakra with her byakugan, she didn't know how to explain it properly but the moment that Naruto cut his thumb the 'red' chakra flowing around his system rushed to the sight of the injury.

"I also have enhanced senses and an increased amount of stamina." Naruto explained looking at Kiba with a sly grin. "My nose is probably as good as yours Inuzuka or only slightly worse." Naruto declared confidently getting a scoff out of Kiba before the other boy smirked at him.

"Please like anyone could have a nose as good as an Inuzuka." Naruto just smirked at the other genin as he walked along before his curiosity got the better of him and he reached out to pet Akamaru. "I wouldn't do that if I were you dude." Kiba warned but shrugged when Naruto ignored him and ended up with Akamaru biting into his hand.

Naruto just frowned at the puppy now sinking his teeth into him and actually used the ninken's grip to lift him off of Kiba's head.

"Dude what're you doing?"

"Dognapping." Naruto said resting Akamaru on his other arm while using a finger to gently stroke under the puppy's chin.

"Naruto has a thing for animals." Sasuke explained knowing sooner or later that the ninken wouldn't want to leave Naruto alone, even the nastiest summons that they could conjure treated Naruto special. Despite his near constant aura of bloodlust and anger Naruto could just connect with nature and different animals no matter what they were. "You'd better watch out or the puppy will want to spend more time with him than you." The Uchiha warned getting a scoff out of Kiba but the boy did look slightly nervous when Akamaru let go of Naruto's hand and started licking at his wound instead.

The group had an easy journey after that and no one was complaining about how much ground they had covered in the course of the day. If they kept going at that pace then team eight would reach the port where they could take a boat to Nami no Kuni in two days and after tomorrow team seven would have to split off from them and head towards the location that was given in their mission scroll. Naruto was looking forward to eliminating a camp of bandits he was itching for a good fight after what had happened earlier today, Kakashi's half backed reason left Naruto with a strange feeling in his gut, it had been obvious that Kakashi had been holding back the full reason if not outright lying about why he hadn't done anything about those two shinobi from earlier in the day but Naruto didn't want to even stray into the possibility that Kakashi didn't trust him not after his sensei told him that Naruto could trust him.

When the shinobi set up camp for the night Naruto was surprised at how well he seemed to be getting on with Kiba, after the blond had 'kidnapped' Akamaru he and the Inuzuka heir just seemed to click. Of course the fact that Kiba actually remembered Naruto back from the academy six years ago helped a lot as well, Naruto didn't think that anyone would remember him from all those years ago but apparently he was wrong. It was clear by Ino's reactions that some of their class remembered Sasuke but Naruto had been expecting that, it was hard not to remember the genius that just up and disappeared after his entire clan had been destroyed. Naruto had not expected anyone to remember him though.

"Totally dude." Kiba was telling him as they sat around the camp fire. "You were like right up there with Sasuke when we were six right?" Kiba asked making sure that he was remembering the right blond when Naruto nodded Kiba grinned before frowning suddenly. "So why'd you both up and leave anyway I mean the instructors were complete ass bags to you but you had the skills."

"Got sick of how I was treated more than anything." Naruto admitted he didn't see any harm with telling Kiba a little about himself with the omission of Kyuubi he wasn't even lying either. He left after the last attack because he hated the village and wanted to leave it far far behind, thinking about that last attack made something click in Naruto's head though as he stared at Kiba for a second. "Wait is your mom that Tsume woman?" Naruto kind of remembered a scary lady picking Kiba up from the academy and recognised her as the same Inuzuka that had looked around his apartment after the last attack. Naruto briefly wondered if he should thank her for trying to help him out when he got back to the village, there were very few people that were willing to help him back then and he didn't feel right not letting them know how much even that small act of kindness meant to him, hell her partner had even given him a small lick on the cheek. Naruto had been terrified of the large wolf-dog ninken at first until he had done that and even though he was a different species Naruto had seen a quiet compassion in the ninken's eyes that made him calm down a lot.

"Yeah that's my mom's name." Kiba said before frowning lightly at Naruto. "Wait how do you know my mom?" Kiba asked scratching the back of his head; he couldn't remember Naruto ever being around the Inuzuka compound so it was strange that the blond would know his mom.

"She tried to help me out when I was little, she failed but her and her ninken really helped me out when I was in a bit of a bad place." Naruto admitted remembering the way that Kuromaru's lick brought Naruto back to the land of the living after he was stabbed. "I kind of owe them both one for that." Naruto admitted looking up at the stars it was getting kind of late now and they had all agreed to an early start in the morning even Tazuna. As if summoned by the stray thought both teams Jounin walked back into the small camp along with Sakura and Hinata carrying the teams canteen's filled with fresh water.

"Okay have you decided who's going to take first watch?" Kurenai asked as she handed back Kiba and Shino their canteens the four boys looked at one another before Naruto raised his hand.

"I'll take it, I don't need that much sleep anyway." Naruto said getting up to stretch his body out before forming half a dozen Kage bunshin that spread out in the immediate area the real Naruto jumped up onto a tree branch and set himself against the trunk comfortably looking out away from the camp while everyone set out their bed rolls.

"Don't fall asleep." Kakashi warned in his usual birdsong voice that made Naruto growl that was going to become very annoying if Kakashi made a habit of talking to his team like they were children his was thirteen damn it.

"Not a damn kid Kaka sensei." Naruto said with a strained smile that got a chuckle out of the jounin before he took a more serious tone.

"If you need to swap out don't hesitate no matter how long is left of your shift." Naruto nodded but doubted that he would need to swap with anyone for the rest of the night it had been proven time and time again that he was a living juggernaut with endless amounts of energy. Naruto had been forced once to fight until he dropped down from chakra exhaustion the blond shuddered at the memory, he couldn't argue with the results but their old teacher's methods were borderline torture. Still Naruto had lasted almost five days something that he was still annoyed about, he was only an hour of the full five.

"I will sensei." Naruto said looking back out into the dark forest as his shift begun. Despite not having done anything overly strenuous the teams had been walking most of the day and were more than eager for a little shut eye. Tazuan was out like a light and was soon followed by most of the genin with the exception of Sasuke who spent a little while just staring up at the stars before he finally fell asleep. Kakashi and Kurenai spent a little longer talking among themselves and didn't settle down until after they were sure that their squads were sound asleep. Knowing that everyone was asleep Naruto got comfy for a long night he wouldn't trade out with anyone else tonight unless he was forced to after all he was the best one suited for this kind of task because of his kage bunshin, if any of them sensed even the slightest hint of danger they would dispel and alert Naruto instantly. Speaking of which Naruto made another clone and dispelled it straight away to give an update to his other clones, soon after his other clones repeated that same move giving Naruto a very clear idea of where each one was and what the surrounding terrain was like.

_'You awake fuzzy?' _Naruto thought to his inner tenant but only got back a loud snore that for some reason brought a smile to his face. "Guess not."

Naruto was no stranger to being on watch for a camp after all he and Sasuke had been doing it ever since they left the village all those years ago so when Naruto started getting a feeling in the pit of his stomach he knew that it wasn't just from the nerves of his first watch alone in a dark wood. It had started a few hours after everyone had gone to sleep and it was not leaving him alone even as the sky was starting to brighten up again.

Making another clone Naruto dispelled it to get another report from his perimeter.

"That's the third clone you've made in the last half an hour." Naruto to his credit didn't jump out of his skin when Kakashi landed on the branch next to him, he had been so focused on keeping watch out of the camp he had forgotten to look in every once and a while. "Naruto? Are you alright? You remember what I said right?"

"I've got a bad feeling." Naruto said completely ignoring his sensei's questions and attracting Kakashi's full attention with the serious tone the jounin instantly dropped the happy pretence and followed Naruto's gaze out into the woods. Kakashi had woken up when he kept feeling Naruto's chakra splitting and reforming again and again, the blond hadn't moved his eyes from one spot for over an hour.

_**"There's nothing there kit trust me." **_Kyuubi had been woken up by Naruto's increasingly paranoid use of his newest jutsu. Despite his trust in Kyuubi Naruto really didn't feel reassured at all not until Kakashi relaxed next to him and patted his shoulder.

"You should get some sleep." His jounin sensei said with an eye smile Kakashi was fairly confident that there was nothing in their area that could harm them and put Naruto's feeling down to a lack of sleep combined with staring in the dark for too long. When Naruto frowned and looked back out though Kakashi wasn't so sure and the longer he thought about it the more worried he became, Naruto and Sasuke were both experienced so a little dark shouldn't have been enough to rattle them. "You ever have a feeling like this before?"

"Twice."

"What happened?" Naruto hesitated for a second and glanced at his sensei before looking a little ashamed.

"The first was a little over a year after we left." Naruto started but stopped when he thought about what had happened back then he wanted to tell Kakashi everything but was afraid of what would happen if he did. "And we ended up getting beat within an inch of our lives by two monsters."

"And the second?" Kakashi was smart enough to know that pushing Naruto into telling him everything was a bad idea not only because the Hokage had ordered him to get every bit of information regarding the past six years out of them but also because he was just starting to gain his students trust and he would not sacrifice that for anything.

"The second was a month ago and we ended up running all the way to one of the big five hidden villages." Naruto admitted trying to look anywhere but his sensei right now remembering how he had wanted to go anywhere but Konoha. If he was being honest with himself he still felt the same way about the village in general, he just had some things within the village that he cared about now. Namely Kakashi and Sakura, maybe Kiba and Akamaru as well if things kept going the way they were right now, Kiba was kind of awesome.

"Get some sleep Naruto." Kakashi said gently but Naruto could tell it was still an order. "Go on before I chop you." Joking the one eyed jounin chopping the air with his hand and a smile that made Naruto chuckle before the blond relented and hopped down off of the tree. He dispelled his clones knowing that they would vanish the moment he fell asleep anyway as he spread out his own sleeping roll. _'Night Kyu.'_

_**"Go to sleep already kit and stop worrying. You're turning paranoid."**_Kyuubi moaned but didn't let up with his attention to the surrounding area. Despite what he said Naruto seemed to have a freaky talent for predicting when something was about to happen and the last two times had been disastrous from every ones point of view. The term clusterfuck came to mind when the giant fox thought back to those. _**'Damn it Kit now I'm on edge.'**_Kyuubi wasn't the only one tense either as Kakashi stared out into the trees a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"This is where we part ways." Kakashi said the next day when they came across a fork in the road, they had made excellent time throughout the day and with a bit of luck team seven would be able to complete their own mission before the day was done. The two teams quickly said their goodbyes and Kiba and Naruto agreed to meet up back in the village when Sakura asked Hinata if she wanted to get do something when they were both back.

Despite the cheerful façade that he was putting on though Naruto was still tense and if you looked hard enough he was very twitchy as well but managed to hide it remarkably well. Sasuke had talked with the blonde briefly this morning and was just as tense. The Uchiha's hand had barely left his sword all day though he claimed it was just in case those ninja from the day before came back.

Not wanting to leave Kiba without taking one more shot at the Inuzuka Naruto bent down to look at Akamaru who once again had his head sticking out of Kiba's coat.

"Hey Akamaru you want to ditch this loser and come with me instead?" Naruto grinned his fox like eyes flicking up to the confident look on Kiba's face that shattered in an instant when Akamaru barked happily and tried to wriggle his way away from Kiba.

"That was a no." Kiba yelled taking off down the way his team was meant to go at high speeds. "Come on sensei we have a mission to complete right." Naruto smirked at his victory over his newest friend while the rest of team ten followed their hyperactive teammate.

"I like him." Naruto laughed getting a grin out of Sakura when he wandered along the path that they were taking with much more energy than before. She may not have known Naruto very long but she knew that something was up this morning if only because his hand would twitch towards his new sword whenever there was a sudden noise. She also noticed how aggressive he was towards everyone else that wasn't a part of his team. On more than one occasion since their team was found Sasuke had had to out himself between Naruto and someone to keep the blond from going too far. The incident in the Hokage's office a few days ago wasn't the first time Naruto had been angered. She briefly wondered why she hadn't had to deal with that side of the blond; their first meeting was on a similar if much more toned down scale to what Naruto was normally like with people but he hadn't been anything like that since. Sakura shrugged as she walked along, maybe the fact that they were on a team earned her a free pass or he just liked her after spending some time with her, either way she was glad that he had. A pissed off Naruto was terrifying.

"I can imagine the children." Sasuke quipped casually ignoring the death glare that Naruto was giving him. "They would have to invent a new word for idiot and dobe." Naruto growled softly at his best friend but let him have his fun, Naruto would just kick his ass in a sparring match at some later point. Shaking her head at the boys antics Sakura had a pretty good idea of what was passing through Naruto's mind but instead just turned to look at Kakashi, they were within a day's travel of their mission and she was starting to get a little nervous.

"Sensei how exactly are we meant to get rid of the bandits." She knew that it was probably a stupid question and half expected to be met by a trio of 'are you stupid' stares from the group but to her surprise, her sensei sighed while Naruto and Sasuke looked back at her sheepishly. There was a very good chance that some of the bandits would die, after all no bandit would ever think that a trio of kids were more dangerous than they were with their fancy swords so there was no way that they would surrender to them. There were ways to take down a bandit force without killing them but in Naruto's mind keeping anyone other than the leader alive was a waste of time and resources seeing as how they would just be locked away.

Sharing a glance Sasuke and Naruto kept quiet, anyone's first kill was always the hardest or so they were told. It defiantly fit with their own experiences, Sasuke had almost broken down entirely when he had killed his first man when he was seven, and Naruto had just stayed quiet for an entire day after his around the same time. Their first kills were in self-defence which helped both kids rationalise it and deal with it a lot better than if they had had gone out of their way to kill someone but Sakura wouldn't have that luxury if she killed someone when the fighting started.

"We either knock them out for the local villages or towns to lock up themselves," Kakashi began trying to keep his air of nonchalance up as he kept walking but failed when he almost missed a step. "Or we simply kill the bandits." It was only when Sakura gasped that Naruto gave her a look. Did she really expect to not have to kill anyone at some point? She was a ninja every ninja had to kill at some point in their careers and the best apparently started very early, Naruto defiantly did.

"Just like that?" Sakura whispered after a moment to collect herself. She was not an idiot and of course knew that killing was a part of a ninja's job, but she always expected it to be more secretive, more a deal, not just… well this. Could they just walk into an enemy camp and kill? Could they? One look to both Naruto and Sasuke told her that they could and Kakashi had been an ANBU and fought in the last war so he must have been more than willing to end someone's life. "Oh."

"Try and think of it logically Sakura." Sasuke said getting everyone's attention, he had developed a perfectly logical way of thinking about death, Naruto sometimes thought that it was the only way Sasuke could kill and it was something that Naruto respected. "These bandits are stealing, murdering and raping. They would be sentenced to death in any case. Trying to take them alive would just cause us more risk."

"He's right." Naruto chimed in lifting the back of his shirt to show off a small, broad scar that was in his side. Kakashi glanced back in interest and guessed that the scar was caused by a spear or something similar. "If you let your guard down around prisoners for even a second then it can turn the tables round on you." Letting go of his shirt Naruto frowned at the memory of that day. He had Sasuke had a job that was not unlike this one, just deal with a few bandits.

Their reaction at being confronted by a pair of nine year olds was as they had expected but a few untrained practically unarmed idiots were no match for a Kyuubi charged Naruto and Sharingan Sasuke. Unfortunately Naruto wondered if the bounty would be bigger if they brought the bandits back alive so instead of just killing them outright tied them up and walked back to town with them. Only to be stabbed in the back when he let his guard down. Naruto had been counting on them being too afraid to try anything but was wrong. Since that day he had never taken a target alive that he didn't have to. Death was a certainty, the end, being alive left the target with so many options that no matter how skilled Naruto became if he let his guard down he could end up sporting another scar.

The conversation dropped after that as Sakura tried to come to grips with what they were going to be doing soon.

Team seven managed to make it to the town that sent out the request within another few hours and decided that to attack the bandit camp before the end of the day. Kakashi thought about a night time attack but decided that attacking in the day time would be better not tactically though. If he was doing this mission solo or with another chunin or even with just Naruto and Sasuke he might have taken the camp in the night, taking most of the bandits out in their sleep. He, however, was not solo or with another chunin or just with Naruto and Sasuke. Sakura was here as well and Kakashi knew that she would not be able to kill someone who was sleeping peacefully for her first kill. She would need that fight or flight instinct kicking in; she'd need the adrenaline rushing through her veins and someone willing to do to her what she was trying to will herself to do to them.

"You sure you're okay with this Sakura?" Kakashi asked again, he had planned for Sakura to stay back and just her genjutsu for support but she had insisted on being down in the kick with the rest of her squad.

"It's okay Kakashi sensei." She repeated nodded to herself as she held her kunai in a tight grip, she didn't really know how to use the katana that Naruto had given her yet so she was sticking with what she knew. Kakashi nodded at his students resolve and left it at that. Dealing with the fallout of whatever happened to her in the battle would be more effective than trying to prepare her for every possibility now.

"Keep moving. Don't let your momentum stop the battle won't pause if you do." Was all Sasuke said to her, he doubted that Kakashi would take his eye off of Sakura the entire time but he felt worried.

Naruto didn't have any words of advice; in fact since they had arrived Naruto hadn't said a word. The blond had just been tightening and loosening the grip on the hilt of his sword while staring out at the edge of the bandit's camp.

He could feel it. The bloodlust that came hand in hand with Kyuubi's chakra, it was there just at the edges of his mind, clawing and trying to force its way in, even Kyuubi was growling lightly in impatience. Naruto supressed the urge to twitch as they waited, patience wasn't his best trait.

"Naruto?" Kakashi asked noticing the way that his student's muscles were all tense.

"I'm good." Naruto said nodding to his sensei and taking a deep breath all he really wanted was for Kakashi to say the word and then he'd be off.

"Okay remember to take the leader alive." Kakashi reminded them before the jounin crouched down on the branch that he was stood on. His every present book was in his equipment pouch and he had a kunai held loosely in his hand. The jounin took one last look over his squad and decided that they were ready. "Go."

The moment the command was given all three genin leapt into action. Naruto actually snapped the branch that he was balanced on from the force that he pushed off with. Sakura on advice from Sasuke kept behind Naruto choosing to leap to the ground and run in rather than sail through the air towards the entrance of the camp. The young kunoichi felt adrenaline flow through her veins as she ran up to the bandits guarding the camp. Both would have been intimidating men if she wasn't confident in the gap between their abilities. They both had a katana strapped to their waists as well.

The moment Sakura and Sasuke jumped down from their branches the guards were on alert hands going to their swords until they noticed the fact that the intruders running towards them were two thirteen year olds. They actually started laughing at the pair of shinobi until Naruto landed from his powerful jump, straight on one of the guard's heads, using him as a stepping stone to jump further into camp. Sasuke took one glance at the now unconscious guard before sprinting around the other one and heading into the camp, his was confident that Sakura would have no trouble with only one guard.

Sakura's instinct was to stop and face her 'opponent' but Sasuke's words from earlier echoed around her mind and the kunoichi gripped her kunai tighter than before. The guard was distracted for a moment by Sasuke as the shinobi ran around him but quickly recovered to sneer at Sakura and take a swing at her with his sword.

"So your boyfriend left you did…" Sakura didn't pay any attention to the bandit as she moved through one of the academies basic forms. She ducked under the blade, slashed across the bandits unprotected stomach and spun three hundred and sixty degrees to throw her bloodied kunai into the back of the bandits neck before landing and heading further into the camp, only pausing long enough to take a fresh kunai out from her holster.

_'I just did it.'_ She thought willing her hands to stop shaking as another bandit came running up to her a large clever in his hand. Sakura suppressed the urge to either break down or vomit and let her instincts carry her through the fight at that point. The small camp was in uproar and Naruto was in the thick of it.

Naruto didn't look back once he used the guards face as a surface to jump further into the camp, he didn't need to. He _knew _that Sasuke could handle himself and he was confident that Sakura would be fine especially since Kakashi would most likely be shadowing her the entire time.

With the safety of his squad no longer a concern in his mind Naruto let loose the moment that he jumped off of the guards face. The blond cut clean through a helpless bandit as he landed effectively letting the entire camp know that something was amiss when said bandit screamed before Naruto rushed up to the closest foe and took off one of his legs with a low swipe.

To their credit the bandits didn't take long to react or organise and were quickly moving to swarm Naruto who they had come to realise was an actual threat. Said blond just grinned as the hapless fools rushed towards him.

The blond blocked multiple sword strikes with the flat of his blade, back handed a bandit with enough force to send him spinning away into a tree, ducked under the swords to slash up someone's chest before cutting into another ones shoulder and backing away from the mob ramming his elbow into another chest with enough force to shatter his ribs. Naruto wasn't going to go out of his way to kill these guys but he was by no means going to soften any of his blows either.

Sasuke scoffed when he cut down another bandit throwing the sword that he had caught off to one side. A group of five others were all stood before him just now starting to look scared as the young Uchiha had killed half their number.

"Surrender you're no match for me." Was all the raven haired boy said whipping his sword around to get the blood off of it. Why did any of these guys carry swords if they were all complete armatures with them? The bandits were glancing from Sasuke, who had just take down five of them in a few seconds, to Naruto, who was ploughing through their camp and knocking down the criminals left right and centre like they were bowling pins, to Sakura, who while moving slower than Naruto and Sasuke was just as surely racking up a body count of her own. When the bandits just gripped their katana's harder Sasuke sighed and with a flash of his sharingan made them all drop unconscious, trapped in a genjutsu.

"That it?" Naruto called out when he smacked down the last bandit, for all the bloodletting that Naruto had been doing he had surprisingly little on his, only a small splash around the bottom of his trousers where he had stepped into a pool of blood. Looking around the camp the blond shrugged a little disappointed that it hadn't lasted longer but not complaining at the same time, there were plenty more fights ahead that he would no doubt have a chance to sink his teeth into. Shrugging to himself the blond swiped the hat of a fallen bandit and wiped the thick layer of blood that had gathered on his sword. "Sakura?"

"Over here." She called walking around one of the larger tents and into the view of her teammates. Naruto looked her over and was happy to see that there were no obvious wounds on her person and aside from being a little pale she seemed to be handling herself well. "Did either of you get the leader?" She suddenly asked looking around the various corpses and unconscious bodies littered about the place.

"Erm." Naruto gave a quick look around before looking over to Sasuke who just kind of shrugged, how were they meant to tell the leader apart? Certainly not by ability because all of these guys sucked.

"Don't worry my cute little genin." Kakashi called jumping down in the middle of them and dropping someone off of his shoulder rather roughly. "I found him while you were all having fun." The jounin looked around before taking in his genin. Naruto was unsurprisingly fine, Sasuke looked bored and Sakura… Well Sakura looked fine as well, sitting down casually on top of a barrel. "So…Have fun?" Kakashi asked a length before the cry of a hawk got the jounin to look up and hold out his arm.

Everyone watched with curiosity as a Konoha messenger hawk carefully landed on their jounin's outstretched arm and let Kakashi get to the scroll locked away in a compartment on is back. The jounin's demeanour changed instantly as he read the message.

"Kurenia's team have ran into trouble." Kakashi informed them rolling the scroll back up and putting it back into the case. The hawk flew off a moment later to return to Konoha but team seven gathered around Kakashi. "Those ninja that were following us attacked them a little after we split up. They were after the bridge builder." Sakura gasped but was cut off from saying anything by Kakashi. "Everyone is alright but their mission grade went from a C to at least B if not A rank. Kurenai decided to carry on but has requested back up from another team and we're the closest. We've completed this mission, tie up any survivours and the villagers will collect them on their own by tomorrow."

"We're going to reinforce team 8 right?" Naruto said as he formed a dozen shadow clones to tie up the survivors and move them to the centre of the camp. If ninja attacked the bridge builder than someone must have hired them and Zabuza was a missing ninja in the land of the waves. Could Kurenai, Kiba, Akamaru, Shino and Hinata handle an encounter with someone like that? Naruto shuddered at the thought regretting not telling them about the nuke nin while he had the chance.

"We're the closest team so yes we are. Sakura we're going to be running the entire way how are you holding up." Taking offence at being singled out Sakura huffed and just nodded. She hadn't used any chakra all day even during the attack; she should be able to maintain a fast pace all the way to the land of the waves.

"I can always give you a carry if you feel tired Sakura." Naruto joked as his clones dispelled basically signalling for them to get under way. Kakashi took lead but dropped back into his casual attitude when they got under way joking about how their first C-rank was meant to be easy not turn into an A-rank rescue.

Sasuke shared a look with Naruto while Kakashi was talking. Naruto knew that he was being paranoid but that feeling that he had was back.

**Hey been a while but I hope you guys enjoyed it. Especially the beginning ;)**

** Don't forget to leave a review and fav and all that :P**


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